History
Cre-Lox recombination is a special type of site-specific recombination developed by Dr. Brian Sauer initially for use in activating gene expression in mammalian cell lines and transgenic mice (DuPont). Subsequently, the laboratory of Dr. Jamey Marth showed that Cre-Lox recombination could be used to delete loxP-flanked chromosomal DNA sequences at high efficiency in selected cell types of transgenic animals, suggesting this approach as a means to define gene function in specific cell types, indelibly mark progenitors in cell fate determination studies, induce specific chromosomal rearrangements for biological and disease modeling, and determine the roles of early genetic lesions in disease (and phenotype) maintenance. Shortly thereafter, the laboratory of Dr. Klaus Rajewsky reported the production of pluripotent embryonic stem cells bearing a targeted loxP-flanked (floxed) DNA polymerase gene. Combining these advances in collaboration, the laboratories of Drs. Marth and Rajewsky showed in 1994 that Cre-lox recombination could be used for conditional gene targeting in vivo. This technique continues to be used by hundreds of researchers and laboratories around the world as an essential procedure to discover gene function in normal and disease biology, resulting in numerous important discoveries that would otherwise have not been possible. In 2009, Germany awarded the Max Delbrück medal to Dr. Klaus Rajewsky for his role in developing Cre-Lox recombination. Cre-Lox recombination involves the targeting of a specific sequence of DNA and splicing it with the help of an enzyme called Cre recombinase. Because systemic inactivation of many genes further cause embryonic lethality, Cre-Lox recombination is commonly used to circumvent this problem. In addition, Cre–Lox recombination provides the best experimental control that presently exists in transgenic animal modeling to link genotypes (alterations in genomic DNA) to the biological outcomes (phenotypes).
Read more about this topic: Cre-Lox Recombination
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)