Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the movement of genetic material between organisms. It plays a key role in bacterial evolution and is the primary mechanism by which bacteria have gained antibiotic resistance and virulence. Scientists have studied how HGT occurs in nature and ...
Every few months we highlight a subset of the new plasmids in the repository through our hot plasmids articles. These articles provide brief summaries of recent plasmid deposits and we hope they'll make it easier for you to find and use the plasmids you need. If you'd ever like ...
Thousands of mutations have been implicated in cancer. Yet, the majority of them remain uncharacterized. This represents a considerable barrier to furthering research and developing effective treatments for the disease. Recently, Kenneth Scott’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine ...
Biotin and its binding partner avidin are commonly used today in molecular biology for an array of different techniques and protocols. In this post we will discuss the natural role of biotin, biotinylation, the discovery of the biotin-avidin interaction and the uses of ...
Members of the bacterial world produce an assortment toxins to claim territory or kill competing microorganisms, but did you know bacteria also produce substances toxic to themselves? What are toxin-antitoxin systems? These toxic substances are part of toxin-antitoxin systems ...
This post was contributed by Laura Lee, a graduate student at Stanford University. Arabidopsis is a fantastic model organism for many reasons, not the least of which is ease of transformation. There are many motivations to generate transgenic Arabidopsis, from studying ...
This post was contributed by Jake Watson and Javier García-Nafría from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Plasmid cloning is an essential part of any molecular biology project, yet very often, it is also a bottleneck in the experimental process. The majority of current ...
