Proteins mediate virtually all biological processes. Understanding the mechanisms by which proteins function requires a knowledge of their three-dimensional (3D) structures. As a consequence of the genome and full-length cDNA sequencing projects, there are several orders of ma ...

A decade ago the first alteration of a gene using embryonic stem (ES) cells was performed in the mouse (1). Since then ES cells have become a powerful tool to generate mutant mice for the analysis of gene function. These mutant mice (also called knockout mice) have provided new insights into normal and path ...

As the completion of genome sequencing efforts leads to the definition of increasing numbers of genes, the need to reliably assign function to identified coding sequences becomes paramount. One means of gaining initial insight into the function of an undefined protein is to develop a map of oth ...

Gene therapy vectors based on adeno-associated virus (AAV) are being used to successfully transduce a number of different tissues, including muscle (1). The first demonstration of muscle transduction by recombinant AAV (rAAV) was reported by Xiao et al. (2) in 1996. In that report, LacZ express ...

An obligatory part of the life cycle of retroviruses (Fig. 1) is a stable, chromosomally integrated form of the virus, known as the provirus. The existence of the proviral form of retroviruses has provided one of the main driving forces for their use as vectors for gene transfer because, in the instance of a r ...

One of the challenges of medical research today is to find ways of bringing our genetic knowledge of cancer to clinical application and to develop improved therapies by exploiting gene-based strategies. By offering increased specificity and reduced toxicity, gene-based approaches p ...

The analysis of traits and disorders that exhibit a straightforward Mendelian genetics, based on the kind of major gene models that are easy to set up in computer programs such as LINKAGE (1), has been enormously successful in facilitating identification of the genes responsible. These monog ...

One of the major tasks in human genome analysis is the identification and typing of DNA sequence variations (1). There are many types of sequence variations in the human genome. One type comprises sequences with variations in the number of repeat units such as short tandem repeat polymorphisms in t ...

The completely unexpected discovery that the RNA molecule has catalytic properties (1,2) has led to a plethora of interest in the identification and utilization of a variety of catalytic RNA molecules, or ribozymes, that occur in nature. Among others, hammerhead ribozyme is a small catalytic ...

Genome mismatch scanning (GMS) is a rapid method of isolating regions of identity by descent (IBD) between two related individuals (1–5). With the availability of simple PCR techniques, vast numbers of highly informative genomewide polymorphic markers, and more recently, radiation hy ...

Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) provides genome-scale overviews of chromosomal copy number changes in tumors (1). Unlike conventional cytogenetic analysis, it needs no cell culturing, making it applicable to practically any kind of clinical specimen from which DNA can be o ...

For accurate assembly of a bacterial clone map (or contig), it is necessary to precisely detect the degree of overlap and map order of clones. One way is to generate fingerprints for all the clones in a given project. The overlap between clones is determined by the proportion of comigrating restriction ...

Bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) represent a very useful cloning system for large DNA fragments and utilize the Escherichia coli F factor as their backbone. E. coli F factor allows strict copy number control of the clones so that they are stably maintained at one to two copies per cell (1). The s ...

The full integration of the cytogenetic, genetic, and physical maps together with the search to identify all the genes of an organism and the effort to position them on the corresponding integrated map, has long been a key issue in genetics. In all three fields of mapping, enormous progress has been made ...

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) provides a rapid means of placing labeled DNA segments into a wider genomic context. Mapping to banded metaphase chromosomes anchors clones for specific genes or markers in a well-recognized framework and provides a useful confirmation that ...

Massively parallel sequencing technology opens new possibilities for epigenetic research. Many methods have been developed based on the new sequencing platforms, allowing an ultra-deep mapping of epigenetic variants in a fast and cost-effective way. However, handling millions ...

Lysine acetylation of histones is one of the major epigenetic regulators of chromatin conformation and gene expression. The dynamic nature of histone acetylation is determined by the counterbalancing activity of histone acetyltransferase and histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzy ...

DNA methylation, which most commonly occurs at the C5 position of cytosines within CpG dinucleotides, plays a pivotal role in many biological procedures such as gene expression, embryonic development, cellular proliferation, differentiation, and chromosome stability. Aberr ...

The miRBase Sequence database is the primary repository for published microRNA (miRNA) sequence and annotation data. miRBase provides a user-friendly web interface for miRNA data, allowing the user to search using key words or sequences, trace links to the primary literature referenc ...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have recently emerged as important regulators of gene expression controlling central biological processes. These small, approx 22-nucleotide (nt)-long RNA molecules induce translational suppression when they are imperfectly matched to their target me ...