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What I've been doing

By Rosie Redfield on Sunday, October 31, 2010
Nothing that has generated any big insights.  The RA and I are working on the E. coli competence question:  Given that E. coli appears to have all the genes needed for DNA uptake and transformation, can we detect competence or transformation?  We have several strategies:  1.  Artificially induce sxy expression to turn on the competence genes, using one of two IPTG-inducible sxy plasmid constructs.  2. Use a recombineering protein to increase the efficiency of recombination.  3.  Screen strains of the ECOR collection.

4 comments:

  1. TylerOctober 31, 2010 at 2:19 PM

    I'm sorry, I had to ask: what is sxy?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rosie RedfieldNovember 18, 2010 at 7:26 AM

    Sxy is a bacterial gene. It encodes a transcriptional regulator protein that, with another protein called CRP, activates genes that specify the ability to take up DNA.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DevinDecember 15, 2010 at 12:50 PM

    ^
    Can upregulating this make E. coli more competent?
    I'm wondering if there are ways to increase competence past the 10^10 cfu/ug level.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rosie RedfieldDecember 16, 2010 at 5:36 AM

    I don't think so, but we haven't really tested it.

    ReplyDelete

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