Gene Placement

The function of a gene is affected by its position on the chromosome if it is in the wrong place it either will not function or can damage a cell. Trouble is, there is no way of making sure a therapeutic gene gets to the right spot. Israeli scientists have found a new type of gene carrier, or vector, which might get around this.

Ernest Winocour and his team at the Weizmann Institute and Jacov Tal of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have looked at so-called single-minded vectors and found a whole class of viruses that can place genes in precisely one position. Their vectors were created using certain unique characteristics of the infection process of parvoviruses. Namely, their striking ability to integrate themselves into a chromosome at a single site only avoiding the effects of random placement.

The team has studied the minute virus of mice, or MVM and worked out how it focuses on a particular target site - it turns out that signals exchanged by the virus and the chromosomes are needed. They are using this signalling effect to help them target particular sites on a host chromosome and are currently engineering cell cultures and rodent models to test the applications.

 

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This item originally appeared in the February 1998 issue of Elemental Discoveries, David Bradley Science Writer's science webzine.

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