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Knowing where bacteria are located within their host is often key to understanding their role in both health and disease. To observe bacteria in action, researchers have developed in vivo bacterial reporters that use fluorophores and luciferases to track bacteria in real time, but each of these reporters has its drawbacks. Acoustic reporter genes (ARGs) overcome these limitations by using gas vesicle reporters that are detectable by an inexpensive and widely available imaging platform: ultrasound.

Adenoviral vectors (AdV) are attractive vectors for research applications and gene therapy: they can be produced at high titers, can accommodate large transgenes, transduce quiescent and dividing cells, and do not integrate into the host’s genome. The main challenge with using AdV is that it triggers a strong immune response after in vivo administration, which results in the death of transduced cells and loss of transgene expression (Interestingly, the strong immunogenicity of AdVs is what makes them ideal candidates for applications in oncolysis and vaccination!)

How many times have you looked at a diagram depicting transcription, or DNA repair, or replication, or any number of CRISPR applications and thought “OK, but how does this work in the context of chromatin?” Though it’s true that adding histones and chromatin architecture to every diagram portraying some aspect of eukaryotic DNA would become busy and potentially detract from the process being depicted, we can’t forget that those other components are still there in real life.  Certainly referring to any DNA within the context of a nucleus as “linear” is a misnomer. The DNA packed into our chromosomes is very much 3-dimensional, as you can see by this post’s chromatin illustrations from Leah Bury of Microscopic Art.

The central dogma in molecular biology is DNA→RNA→Protein. To synthesize a particular protein DNA must first be transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA). mRNA can then be translated at the ribosome into polypeptide chains that make up the primary structure of proteins. Most proteins are then modified via an array of post-translational modifications including protein folding, formation of disulfide bridges, glycosylation and acetylation to create functional, stable proteins. Protein expression refers to the second step of this process: the synthesis of proteins from mRNA and the addition of post-translational modifications

At Addgene we periodically have Science Clubs where we present developments in biology research to the whole company with the goal of educating both scientists and nonscientists alike. As part of these presentations, we generally create one page cheat sheets that attendees can use to quickly reference information that they (hopefully) learn at science club. In this post you'll find our CRISPR Cheat Sheet from @megearing's recent science club presentation about genome editing and CRISPR. We hope you find this cheat sheet useful!