Construction of a novel set of transfer vectors to study vaccinia virus replication and foreign gene expression |
| |
Authors: | Dvoracek Barbara Shors Teri |
| |
Institution: | Department of Biology and Microbiology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, USA. |
| |
Abstract: | Vaccinia virus (VV) is a useful expression vector for many laboratory applications. To date, approximately 60% ( approximately 120) of the VV genes remain uncharacterized. The thought of smallpox being used as a biological weapon has gained attention. In light of this, it is imperative that we continue to study the basic replication of VV, a poxvirus that is closely related to smallpox. A set of plasmid vectors were constructed to generate gene deletions (pZIPPY-NEO/GUS) in VV or for foreign gene expression (pBR-EXPRESS). The vectors contain the Escherichia coli neomycin resistance (neo) and beta-glucuronidase (gusA) genes as selectable markers to facilitate isolation of recombinant viruses. These are the first transfer vectors to use a neo/gusA selection system. We used these vectors to successfully generate a recombinant D9R deletion mutant of VV and to express E. coli lacZ gene. Results indicate that both vectors are highly suited for their designed purpose. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|