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 ...
Protein purification can be one of the most stressful lab activities. Working with proteins requires a substantial amount of properly folded, relatively pure protein, but getting to this stage is often much easier said than done. As reviewed in our Plasmids 101 series, proteins ...
This post is part of our ongoing Plasmids 101 series. Plasmids 101 will provide you with an overview of general molecular biology knowledge and techniques. If you are interested in reading more, you can find the rest of the Plasmids 101 posts here. Now that we have covered ...
Cre-lox recombination is an incredibly useful molecular biology tool, but like any biological system, it has certain drawbacks. First, the efficiency of Cre recombination varies for different constructs and cell types. Second, Cre may induce recombination at pseudo- or cryptic ...
There are many, many different types of experiments carried out by scientists every day. Although the designs and outcomes may vary, one thing should be present in every experiment-based investigation of a hypothesis: proper controls! For every experiment, an investigator needs ...
