Illegitimate recombination is a major cause of genetic instability in prokaryotes as well as in eukaryotes. This recombination usually occurs at a low frequency, but it is greatly enhanced by UV irradiation or other environmental stresses. DNA damages produced by these environmental stresses are thought to induce DNA double-strand breaks, leading to illegitimate recombination. In this paper we ...

A mayor aim of biotechnology is the establishment of techniques for the precise manipulation of plant genomes. Two major efforts have been undertaken over the last dozen years, one to set up techniques for site-specific alteration of the plant genome via homologous recombination ("gene targeting") and the other for the removal of selectable marker genes from transgenic plants. Unfortunately, de...

The model organism Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) harbors a 356-kb linear plasmid, SCP1. We report here development of a recombinational cloning method for deleting large segment from one telomere of SCP1 followed by replacing with the telomere of pSLA2 and sequentially inserting with the overlapping cosmids in vivo. The procedure depends on homologous recombination coupled with cleavage at telo...

Bacteriophage lambda site-specific recombination comprises two overall reactions, integration into and excision from the host chromosome. Lambda integrase (Int) carries out both reactions. During excision, excisionase (Xis) helps Int to bind DNA and introduces a bend in the DNA that facilitates formation of the proper excisive nucleoprotein complex. The carboxyl-terminal alpha-helix of Xis is t...

DNA polymerase lambda (Pol λ) is a novel family X DNA polymerase which has been shown to play key role in nuclear DNA repair and meiotic recombination. Recent studies in mammals support function of this enzyme in base excision repair in response to oxidative DNA damage. However, in plants the biological function of Pol λ in oxidative stress response is still largely unknown. This review will su...

abstract background: selectable marker gene (smg) systems are critical for generation of transgenic crops. transgenic crop production background: selectable marker gene (smg) systems are critical for generation of transgenic crops. transgenic crop production without using smg is not economically feasible. however, smgs are non-essential once an intact transgenic plant has been established. elim...

DNA is subjected to many endogenous and exogenous damages. All organisms have developed a complex network of DNA repair mechanisms. A variety of different DNA repair pathways have been reported: direct reversal, base excision repair, nucleotide excision repair, mismatch repair, and recombination repair pathways. Recent studies of the fundamental mechanisms for DNA repair processes have revealed...

The removal of oxidative damage from Saccharomyces cerevisiae DNA is thought to be conducted primarily through the base excision repair pathway. The Escherichia coli endonuclease III homologs Ntg1p and Ntg2p are S. cerevisiae N-glycosylase-associated apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) lyases that recognize a wide variety of damaged pyrimidines (H. J. You, R. L. Swanson, and P. W. Doetsch, Biochemistry ...