Despite the unquestionable success of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the treatment of HIV infection, the cost, need for daily adherence, and HIV-associated morbidities that persist despite ART all underscore the need to develop a cure for HIV. The cure achieved following an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) using HIV-resistant cells, and more recently, the report of short-te...

Gene targeting by homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells is extensively used to generate specific mouse mutants. However, most mammalian species lack tools for targeted gene manipulation. Since double-strand breaks strongly increase the rate of homologous recombination at genomic loci, we explored whether gene targeting can be directly performed in zygotes by the use of zinc-finger nu...

Gene targeting by homologous recombination is a powerful tool to precisely manipulate the genome in order to study the function of a gene of interest (GOI). Indeed, it has become a routine methodology in yeasts, murine embryonic stem cells, and a chicken DT40 cell line. However, gene targeting has not been used often in human somatic cells to date since the relative efficiency of gene targeting...

A number of in vitro and in vivo observations have implicated plasminogen in contributing to events associated with diverse physiological and pathophysiological processes. The development of gene knockout technology has led to the generation of plasminogen deficient mice. These mice survive to adulthood and are thus a valuable resource for directly assessing its role in these processes. As a re...

The genome sequence of Arabidopsis is complete and the genomes of plants representing legumes (Medicago truncatula) and grasses (rice) will soon follow. The rate at which new genes have been discovered has far outstripped the pace at which their function is determined. The greatest hurdle that plant biologists face in assigning gene function and in crop improvement is the lack of efficient and ...

Gene therapy and viral therapy for cancer have therapeutic effects, but there has been no significant breakthrough in these two forms of therapy. Therefore, a new strategy called "targeting gene-virotherapy", which combines the advantages of gene therapy and viral therapy, has been formulated. This new therapy has stronger antitumor effects than either gene therapy or viral therapy. A tumor-spe...

Gene-targeting efficiency in the land plant Physcomitrella patens (Bryophyta) can only be compared with that observed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sequencing programs and microbiological molecular genetic approaches are now being developed to unravel the precise function of plant genes. Physcomitrella patens, as the new 'green yeast', might well become a major tool for functional genomic studie...

Since the first parvovirus serotype AAV2 was isolated from human and used as a vector for gene therapy application, there have been significant progresses in AAV vector development. AAV vectors have been extensively investigated in gene therapy for a broad application. AAV vectors have been considered as the first choice of vector due to efficient infectivity, stable expression and nonpathogeni...

When it comes to silencing genes in mice, not all approaches are equal. An example published in this issue of Cell (Patrucco et al., 2004) suggests that caution should be used when validating potential drug targets by genetic disruption.

There have been extensive studies on the structure and function of prothrombin; a protein critical for the coagulation of blood. The biological functions of prothrombin and its activated form, thrombin are discussed, as well as the structure and functional domains of the protein. Prothrombin is expressed in a tissue-specific manner and its gene structure and regulatory elements have been analyz...