Escherichia coli dam—dcm—菌株的研究进展

E.coli dam-dcm是一种在分子生物学技术中被广泛应用的菌株之一。Dam和Dcm是两种甲基转移酶，Dam识别GATC位点而Dcm识别CCA（T）GG位点[1]，在E.coli细胞的生命活动中，dam基因产物在DNA的错配修复中具有重要作用，另外，dam的甲基化作用和DNA的复制和基因表达的调节等细胞生命活动过程，Dcm甲基化的生物学功能在很短的补丁修复有很重要的作用。Streptomyces(链霉菌），Bacillus(芽胞杆菌）和Paracoccus（副球菌）的转化通过用dam和dcm位点没有甲基化的DNA可以得到很大的改善[6]。因为5－甲基胞嘧啶对肼有抗生，所以 从dcm缺陷的菌株分离到的DNA用Mazam和Gilbert法进行测序，结果更好[10]。     

Retrovirus-induced de novo methylation of flanking host sequences correlates with gene inactivity

The pattern of DNA methylation changes during development of eukaryotes, and hypomethylation frequently correlates with gene expression (for reviews see refs 1-4). A causal relationship between hypermethylation and gene inactivity has been established for retroviral genomes which are methylated de novo when inserted into the germ line of mice (ref. 5; for review, see ref. 6). The mutual interaction of the provirus with the host genome can influence virus expression and can result in inactivation of the host gene by insertional mutagenesis. We report here that the insertion of a provirus can change the methylation pattern of the host DNA. Sequences flanking the provirus become methylated de novo within 1 kilobase (kb) of the integration site. In Mov-13 mice, which carry a lethal mutation of the alpha 1(I) collagen gene, de novo methylation of host DNA is associated with a change in chromatin conformation. This suggests that virus-induced DNA methylation can alter DNA-protein interactions and thereby interfere with correct gene activation during embryonic development.     

抗口蹄疫病毒phage-scFv及可溶性scFv的构建

利用重组DNA技术在抗口蹄疫病毒单克隆抗体1C 7 VH基因和VL基因之间导入一段连接肽[(G ly4Ser)3],采用重叠延伸拼接法,经聚合酶链反应(PCR)扩增获得scF v基因。将scF v基因克隆至噬菌粒pCANTAB 5E载体,转化E.coli TG 1,构建噬菌体抗体文库。用M 13KO 7辅助噬菌体挽救及固相口蹄疫病毒(FMDV)抗原对噬菌体抗体文库的三轮“吸附-洗脱-扩增”的淘洗,筛选出scFv阳性克隆。将阳性克隆转化E.coli BH 2151,通过异丙基硫代-β-D-半乳糖苷(IPTG)诱导可溶性scFv蛋白的表达。酶联免疫吸附实验(EL ISA)检测表明:scFv克隆表达的phage-scFv及可溶性scFv与FMDV亲和力高,特异性强。     

Transposition without duplication of infecting bacteriophage Mu DNA

Most models of DNA transposition invoke replication of the transposable element, but it is not clear whether a 'co-integrate' is an obligatory intermediate in the pathway leading to the production of simple insertions during transposition. Such an intermediate can be accounted for only by a replicative transposition scheme. Bacteriophage Mu is a temperate phage that can either lysogenize or lyse its host, and it encodes at least two modes of transposition as judged by the end-products generated by the process. During the lytic development of the integrated prophage, co-integrates are the predominant end-products; transposition is coupled to replication during this phase. A small number of simple insertions are also produced during the lytic growth, but during transposition from the infecting phage into the host chromosome, simple insertions are the main end-products. Conditions can be found where the choice between the two kinds of end-products depends on a delicate balance between the essential transposition functions encoded by Mu. Experiments have suggested that the simple insertions which arise during transposition from the infecting phage may do so without Mu DNA replication. Here I demonstrate using an infecting phage with completely methylated DNA, a dam- (DNA adenine methylase) host and a combination of restriction enzymes that can cut either fully methylated or unmethylated DNA but not hemi-methylated DNA, that transposition of the phage DNA into the host chromosome does not involve a duplication of its DNA. This result may also have significance for other transposons that do not appear to go through a co-integrate intermediate during transposition.     

Methylation of a CTCF-dependent boundary controls imprinted expression of the Igf2 gene

The expression of the insulin-like growth factor 2 (Igf2) and H19 genes is imprinted. Although these neighbouring genes share an enhancer, H19 is expressed only from the maternal allele, and Igf2 only from the paternally inherited allele. A region of paternal-specific methylation upstream of H19 appears to be the site of an epigenetic mark that is required for the imprinting of these genes. A deletion within this region results in loss of imprinting of both H19 and Igf2 (ref. 5). Here we show that this methylated region contains an element that blocks enhancer activity. The activity of this element is dependent upon the vertebrate enhancer-blocking protein CTCF. Methylation of CpGs within the CTCF-binding sites eliminates binding of CTCF in vitro, and deletion of these sites results in loss of enhancer-blocking activity in vivo, thereby allowing gene expression. This CTCF-dependent enhancer-blocking element acts as an insulator. We suggest that it controls imprinting of Igf2. The activity of this insulator is restricted to the maternal allele by specific DNA methylation of the paternal allele. Our results reveal that DNA methylation can control gene expression by modulating enhancer access to the gene promoter through regulation of an enhancer boundary.     

Demethylation of CpG islands in embryonic cells

DNA in differentiated somatic cells has a fixed pattern of methylation, which is faithfully copied after replication. By contrast, the methylation patterns of many tissue-specific and some housekeeping genes are altered during normal development. This modification of DNA methylation in the embryo has also been observed in transgenic mice and in transfection experiments. Here we report the fate in mice of an in vitro-methylated adenine phosphoribosyltransferase transgene. The entire 5' CpG island region became demethylated, whereas the 3' end of the gene remained modified and was even methylated de novo at additional sites. Transfection experiments in vitro show that the demethylation is rapid, is specific for embryonic cell-types and affects a variety of different CpG island sequences. This suggests that gene sequences can be recognized in the early embryo and imprinted with the correct methylation pattern through a combination of demethylation and de novo methylation.     

Expression of a bacterial modification methylase gene in yeast

Methylation of specific cytosines in the DNA is generally believed to play some role in the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotes. However, some eukaryotes, such as Drosophila and yeast (S. Hattman, personal communication) seem not to contain 5-methylcytosine in their DNA. It would be interesting to test, how gene expression in such organisms would respond to the methylation of specific cytosines in the genome. As a first step towards this goal, we have introduced the gene encoding the Bacillus sphaericus R modification methylase, which methylates the internal cytosine within the recognition sequence 5'-GGCC, into yeast cells. Southern-type hybridization to DNAs isolated from the transformed yeast clones revealed that the yeast plasmid carrying the prokaryotic methylase gene, as well as the two chromosomal genes tested (his3 and leu2) were methylated, whereas the bulk of the yeast DNA remained largely unmethylated. This indicates that the Bacillus sphaericus modification methylase was expressed in yeast but it modified only certain parts of the yeast DNA.     

GST-hBLyS融合蛋白基因的构建及其在大肠杆菌中的表达

根据hBLyS (humanBlymphocytestimulator)基因序列设计合成特异性引物 ,用RT_PCR从人外周血淋巴细胞扩增出 85 8bp的hBLyS基因 ,并将其插入到融合蛋白原核表达载体 pGEX_4T_1中 ,得到重组表达质粒pGEX_4T_1/hBLyS。把此重组质粒转化大肠杆菌BL2 1,经用IPTG诱导 ,表达出了GST_hBLyS融合蛋白。     

Homoeobox gene expression in mouse embryos varies with position by the primitive streak stage

Pattern formation in animal development requires that genes be expressed differentially according to position in the sheets of cells that make up the early embryo. The homoeobox-containing genes of Drosophila are control genes active both in the establishment of a segmentation pattern and in the specification of segment identity. In situ hybridization experiments confirm that these genes are expressed in a segmentally-restricted manner and that their expression presages morphological differentiation of segmental structures. Homoeobox genes have recently been isolated from the mouse and have been shown to be expressed during mouse development. Using in situ hybridization, we show here that expression of the mouse homoeobox gene Mo-10 (ref. 7) is spatially restricted in the developing embryo and that localization of expression is already evident within the germ layers before their morphological differentiation. These findings support the suggestion that the homoeobox genes of mammals, like those of Drosophila, may be important in pattern formation.     

短小芽孢杆菌(Bacillus pumilus)糖基转移酶基因的克隆、序列分析及表达

为获得具有催化活性的糖基转移酶纯酶,本研究以短小芽孢杆菌基因组DNA为模板,利用简并PCR技术扩增到基因(GT-A)全长序列.该序列全长1 287bp、编码423个氨基酸,分子量约为49.2KD.经序列分析,该基因属于糖基转移酶基因.根据GT-A基因开放阅读框序列设计引物,构建了原核表达重组质粒GTA-pet28a,并在大肠杆菌BL21(DE3)中成功诱导出了一个约50kD的融合蛋白.纯化后测定其糖基转移酶活性,与37℃相比,80℃的反应温度其活性能提高3.4倍左右.研究结果表明,该酶是一种具有应用潜力的嗜高温糖基转移酶.     

蜘蛛拖牵丝蛋白基因转家蚕表达质粒的构建

利用DNA重组技术对络新妇蛛(Nephila clavipes)拖牵丝蛋白基因MaSp1高度重复序列进行多次重组,人工构建成1.6 kb的蜘蛛拖牵丝蛋白人工基因Sil-E,DNA序列分析证明了人工基因序列的正确性.将家蚕L链基因启动子片段、L链cDNA、L链基因终止子融合在一起,构建成丝腺特异性表达单元.再与Sil-E融合构建成蜘蛛拖牵丝蛋白基因家蚕丝腺特异表达单元.将该表达单元克隆到转座子piggyBac的转基因载体中,获得了蜘蛛拖牵丝蛋白转基因表达载体.采用显微注射法将其与辅助质粒共导入到家蚕蚕卵中.筛选转基因阳性个体,经PCR和Southern杂交鉴定,结果表明目的基因整合到家蚕基因组中,为进一步研究家蚕作为生物反应器表达蜘蛛拖牵丝蛋白基因奠定了基础.     

The methylated component of the Neurospora crassa genome

Cytosine methylation is common, but not ubiquitous, in eukaryotes. Mammals and the fungus Neurospora crassa have about 2-3% of cytosines methylated. In mammals, methylation is almost exclusively in the under-represented CpG dinucleotides, and most CpGs are methylated whereas in Neurospora, methylation is not preferentially in CpG dinucleotides and the bulk of the genome is unmethylated. DNA methylation is essential in mammals but is dispensable in Neurospora, making this simple eukaryote a favoured organism in which to study methylation. Recent studies indicate that DNA methylation in Neurospora depends on one DNA methyltransferase, DIM-2 (ref. 6), directed by a histone H3 methyltransferase, DIM-5 (ref. 7), but little is known about its cellular and evolutionary functions. As only four methylated sequences have been reported previously in N. crassa, we used methyl-binding-domain agarose chromatography to isolate the methylated component of the genome. DNA sequence analysis shows that the methylated component of the genome consists almost exclusively of relics of transposons that were subject to repeat-induced point mutation--a genome defence system that mutates duplicated sequences.     

枯草芽孢杆菌的ade基因在大肠杆菌中的MBP融合表达及活性鉴定

扩增了枯草芽孢杆菌的ade基因, 重组入载体pMal-c2x中, 构建了麦芽糖结合蛋白（MBP）融合蛋白的表达体系. 通过IPTG诱导表达, 用MBP亲和层析法, 纯化该融合蛋白（104 700）, 并通过SDS-PAGE对表达及纯化结果进行检验, 对其酶学性质进行了初步研 究. 分析结果表明: 该融合酶蛋白具有显著的腺嘌呤脱氨酶活性, 证明了ade基因是枯草芽孢杆菌中编码腺嘌呤脱氨酶的基因.     

Control of neuronal fate by the Drosophila segmentation gene even-skipped

The central nervous system (CNS) contains a remarkable diversity of cell types. The molecular basis for generating this neuronal diversity is poorly understood. Much is known, however, about the regulatory genes which control segmentation and segment identity during early Drosophila embryogenesis. Interestingly, most of the segmentation and homoeotic genes in Drosophila, as well as many of their vertebrate homologues, are expressed during the development of the nervous system (for example, ref. 3). Are these genes involved in specifying the identity of individual neurons during neurogenesis, just as they specify the identity of cells during segmentation? We previously described the CNS expression of the segmentation gene fushi tarazu (ftz) and showed that ftz CNS expression is involved in the determination of an identified neuron. Here we show that another segmentation gene, even-skipped (eve), is expressed in a different but overlapping subset of neurons. Temperature-sensitive inactivation of the eve protein during neurogenesis alters the fate of two of these neurons. Our results indicate that the nuclear protein products of the eve and ftz segmentation genes are components of the mechanism controlling cell fate during neuronal development.     

Meiotic catastrophe and retrotransposon reactivation in male germ cells lacking Dnmt3L

Mammalian genomes employ heritable cytosine methylation in the long-term silencing of retrotransposons and genes subject to genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation. Little is known of the mechanisms that direct cytosine methylation to specific sequences. Here we show that DNA methyltransferase 3-like (Dnmt3L (ref. 1)) is expressed in testes during a brief perinatal period in the non-dividing precursors of spermatogonial stem cells at a stage where retrotransposons undergo de novo methylation. Deletion of the Dnmt3L gene prevented the de novo methylation of both long-terminal-repeat (LTR) and non-LTR retrotransposons, which were transcribed at high levels in spermatogonia and spermatocytes. Loss of Dnmt3L from early germ cells also caused meiotic failure in spermatocytes, which do not express Dnmt3L. Whereas dispersed repeated sequences were demethylated in mutant germ cells, tandem repeats in pericentric regions were methylated normally. This result indicates that the Dnmt3L protein might have a function in the de novo methylation of dispersed repeated sequences in a premeiotic genome scanning process that occurs in male germ cells at about the time of birth.     

烟草MnSoD cDNA基因的克隆及其在大肠杆菌中的表达

烟草锰超氧化物歧化酶(MnSOD)是一种由核基因编码并定位于线粒体的蛋白质,是植物体内清除超氧根阴离子的主要酶类．采用RT—PCR方法,从烟草(Nicotiana tubaccum)中克隆到MnSODeDNA基因(SodA),序列分析结果与文献报告的资料相比,核苷酸序列的同源性为99．9％,氨基酸序列的同源性为99．6％．该基因能在原核表达载体pBV221中正确表达,并表现出SOD酶活性．