Throughout evolution, DNA transposons provide a recurrent supply of genetic information to give rise novel gene functions by fusion their transposase domain various domains host-encoded proteins. One these “domesticated”, transposase-derived factors is SETMAR/Metnase which naturally occurring protein that consists histone-lysine methyltransferase and an HsMar1 transposase. To elucidate the biol...

Three N-terminal basic residues of Tn5 transposase, which are associated with proteolytic cleavages by Escherichia coli proteinases, were mutated to glutamine residues with the goal of producing more stable transposase molecules. Mutation of either arginine 30 or arginine 62 to glutamine produced transposase molecules that were more stable toward E. coli proteinases than the parent hyperactive ...

We have developed a unique method for mouse transgenesis. The transposase-enhanced pronuclear microinjection (PNI) technique described herein uses the hyperactive piggyBac transposase to insert a large transgene into the mouse genome. This procedure increased transgene integration efficiency by fivefold compared with conventional PNI or intracytoplasmic sperm injection-mediated transgenesis. Ou...

Sleeping Beauty (SB) is a prominent Tc1/mariner superfamily DNA transposon that provides a popular genome engineering tool in a broad range of organisms. It is mobilized by a transposase enzyme that catalyses DNA cleavage and integration at short specific sequences at the transposon ends. To facilitate SB's applications, here we determine the crystal structure of the transposase catalytic domai...

DNA transposases facilitate genome rearrangements by moving DNA transposons around and between genomes by a cut-and-paste mechanism. DNA transposition proceeds in an ordered series of nucleoprotein complexes that coordinate pairing and cleavage of the transposon ends and integration of the cleaved ends at a new genomic site. Transposition is initiated by transposase recognition of the inverted ...

Reduction of imines by [2,5-Ph2-3,4-Tol2(eta(5)-C4COH)]Ru(CO)2H (2) produces kinetically stable ruthenium amine complexes. Reduction of an imine by 2 in the presence of an external amine trap gives only the complex of the newly generated amine. Reaction of 2 with H2N-p-C6H4N=CHPh (11), which contains an intramolecular amine trap, gave a 1:1 mixture of [2,5-Ph2-3,4-Tol2(eta(4)-C4CO)](CO)2RuNH(CH...

Tn5 is unique among prokaryotic transposable elements in that it encodes a special inhibitor protein identical to the Tn5 transposase except lacking a short NH2terminal DNA binding sequence. This protein regulates transposition through nonproductive protein-protein interactions with transposase. We have studied the mechanism of Tn5 inhibition in vitro and find that a heterodimeric complex betwe...

IS50R (and Tn5) normally transposes at a low frequency, partly because cells containing this insertion sequence synthesize low levels of the transposase protein. Since the 5' end of the transposase gene is located next to the outer end of IS50R (and thus close to flanking host sequences), transposition into actively transcribed genes could result in the production of read-through transcripts th...