Author
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Wall, Robert |
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BURDON, THOMAS - UNIV OF EDINBURG |
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Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter Publication Acceptance Date: 12/1/1995 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: The proliferation of transgenic animal studies attests to the power of this tool to address a wide variety of basic biological questions and further suggests that the production of transgenic animals has become common practice at most research institutions. It is therefore somewhat surprising that almost nothing is known about the mechanism by which transgenes becomes integrated into an animals genome. The lack of attentio to this aspect of transgenic technology may in part be attributed to the difficulty of addressing the question and the relative easy with which transgenic mice can be produced. Understanding the mechanism of transgene integration could provide the insight needed to develop strategies for improving efficiency and dramatically lower the costs of producing trans- genic livestock. Most transgenic animals produced by microinjection contain an array of transgene copies integrated into the genome at a single locus. Therefore, at a minimum, three distinct processes must occur: formation of the array; integration into the genome; and degradation of unincorporated DNA. These processes have been difficult to study in part because of the small amount of starting material (individual embryos and the lack of appropriate molecular biological techniques). This chapter discusses what is currently known about each of the three above mentioned events. |
