By Tyler Ford
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First described in the 1980s, protein tags are now one of the most useful items in a scientist’s toolbox. As we’ve covered in Plasmids 101, tags can help you determine localization of a protein of interest, purify it, or determine its expression level without the need for a ...
Bioblasts? Plasmagenes? In the 1940s and 50s, scientists were working to understand genetic cytoplasmic factors that could be transferred between cells. At the time, these extranuclear agents of heredity were thought of as everything from parasites, to symbionts, to genes and ...
Two hybrid systems were developed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in 1989 and are still used extensively to screen for molecular interactions in the cell, including protein-protein, protein-DNA and protein-RNA interactions. The 1980s saw a flurry of discovery in the field of ...
As previous blogs have noted, plants are an important foundation for life on Earth. Selective breeding methods have shaped the plants that we grow and eat, and genetic engineering will continue to improve plant nutrition, yield, and pest resistance. Much of plant genetic ...
As optogenetics turns 10 years old, it’s easy to forget that this technique isn’t limited to neuroscience. In fact, precise light-based control of biological processes is highly useful in other fields, including synthetic biology. Addgene depositors Christopher Voigt and Jeffrey ...
Addgene’s plasmids are used with a wide variety of restriction enzyme-based cloning methods. Each method has its own pluses and minuses, but Golden Gate cloning has been especially useful within both the synthetic biology and genome engineering fields. We’ll walk you through how ...
Transposons are sequences of DNA that can move around in a genome. In a laboratory setting, transposons can be used to both introduce genes into an organism’s genome (see figure) and to disrupt endogenous genes at the site of insertion. In both of these cases, transposons ...
