POL SCI 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Insertion Sequence, Forward Genetics, Zebrafish
Document Summary
Lecture 1: developmental genes and mechanisms are highly conserved across species. This has improved the effectiveness of genetic modification as well as made it more accurate: the development of modern genetic approaches such as production of transgenes has allowed the study of genetics to develop. Human es cells are not typically used outside basic plating due to ethical restrictions. Induced pluripotent stem cells (ips cells) can also be used. However, it is readily preformed with reporter genes and cre-recombinase: reporter genes are markers that are inserted alongside the target gene and is active when the gene is active. This gene also the activity of a cell/gene product to be monitored, usually by colour (lacz) or fluorescents (gfp). Classically the transgene is incorporated into the genome by nicks in dna (which occurs spontaneously) by homologous recombination. This means that the position of the transgene is unknown and random. The efficacy of this process is also low.
