TAR cloning: insights into gene function, long-range haplotypes and genome structure and evolution

The structural and functional analysis of mammalian genomes would benefit from the ability to isolate from multiple DNA samples any targeted chromosomal segment that is the size of an average human gene. A cloning technique that is based on transformation-associated recombination (TAR) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae satisfies this need. It is a unique tool to selectively recover chromosome segments that are up to 250 kb in length from complex genomes. In addition, TAR cloning can be used to characterize gene function and genome variation, including polymorphic structural rearrangements, mutations and the evolution of gene families, and for long-range haplotyping.