With the explosion of interest in using the CRISPR/Cas9 system for gene editing, there is a strong focus on developing tools for delivering the CRISPR machinery safely and efficiently into cells. Exis...
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Biochemical research and biotechnology rely on nucleic acids; however, nucleic acids frequently encounter nucleases that can negatively affect experiments. Although nuclease inhibitors are often used ...
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New tools for human gene editing are rapidly advancing all sectors of biomedicine from basic biology to somatic gene therapy in the clinic. Precise editing of DNA sequences in the human genome can be ...
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Extraction and isolation of nucleic acids from biological samples is an essential prerequisite for further amplification, detection and quantification of specific genetic sequences. The first step in ...
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Titin is a sarcomeric protein expressed primarily in striated muscles. It is responsible for maintaining the structure and biomechanical properties of muscle cells. In the heart, cardiac titin under...
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Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to generate copies of a particular DNA sequence. The technique is common and indispensable in many research applications. Unfortunately, methods for isolating/p...
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Enzymes called ribonucleotidyl transferases (NTases) add nucleotides to the ends of RNAs. At present only a few such enzymes are known, such as poly(A) polymerases and poly(U) polymerases. The selecti...
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‘Nanopore sequencing’ allows a single molecule such as DNA to be analyzed without conventional tools like chemical labels or costly optical instruments. In the process, DNA strands and a stream of...
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Synthesizing DNA and genes is an important tool in biotechnology. It has become commonplace to synthesize short DNA chains, called oligonucleotides, on a substrate and use these as building blocks to ...
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Synthesizing DNA is an important part of biotechnology but current methods are useful only for relatively short gene sequences. Researchers are forced to construct larger genes through time-consuming ...
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To save time and costs, many alternatives to conventional DNA sequencing have been proposed. One approach utilizes an array of oligonucleotide probes (short nucleic acid chains) synthesized by photoli...
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In animals, plants and other eukaryotic organisms, typically one protein is translated from each mRNA. Usually, translation can start only at one end of the mRNA strand. In contrast, several viruses ...
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Genome editing has proven difficult in cells, especially mammalian cells. One way to improve efficiency is to introduce a double-strand break (DSB) in the desired DNA region. These DSBs stimulate cell...
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Humans are diploid organisms whose (non-sex) cells contain two copies of each chromosome – one from each parent. Each of these two copies may be distinguished by genetic variations such as insertion...
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Isolating analytes from complex biological samples is one of the most crucial steps in many areas of biological research and clinical diagnostics. Paramagnetic particles (PMPs) or beads are important ...
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The ability to chemically synthesize single-stranded oligonucleotides has had a profound impact on research and medicine. Yet existing strategies have their limitations. One critical limitation is the...
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Transfection is the process of introducing nucleic acids into cells. Two main strategies are viral (utilizing viruses as vectors) and non-viral. Non-viral methods are less efficient but attractive for...
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DNA synthesis is evolving from chip-based synthesis to a method where oligomers are synthesized and subsequently harvested so this genetic material can be used in a construction kit-type system. This ...
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RNA viruses are commonly used to transform targeted plant cells by introducing a foreign nucleic acid into a cell to permanently alter it. Current methods of inoculating a cell with modified RNA virus...
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Enzymes of the glutathione S-transferase (GST) family are present in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. As much as 10 percent of the cytosolic protein in some mammalian organs can consist of GSTs.
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Restriction enzymes are used widely to cleave double-stranded DNA. However, a given restriction enzyme can only cleave a DNA molecule at the specific nucleotide sequence that corresponds to the recogn...
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Existing methods for gene shuffling and chromosome manipulation are complex and can exhibit a bias for or against particular sites or sequences.
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Effective isolation of nucleic acids from biological samples is an essential prerequisite for efficient downstream amplification, detection and quantification of specific genetic sequences via quantit...
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Molecule-molecule interactions, including interactions between proteins, nucleic acids and other small molecules, are important in a variety of cellular events. A number of physical, molecular biologi...
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Now that complete sequence information is available for many organisms, researchers are focusing on the analysis of single genomic DNA molecules. A key issue in this analysis is how to unravel and mar...
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