A Novel Method for Viral Vector Development
Di Yu
Virus can kill host cells and cause illness and death in humans. An attractive idea is to use virus to kill cancer cells in medical treatment. Scientists try to genetically modify virus and make it specifically recognize and kill cancer cells leaving normal tissue unharmed. The main difficulty in such genetic modification is technical limitation due to the large size of viral DNA.
The present study provides a new easy method for viral DNA modification. It is based on homologous recombination that is naturally used by a bacterial virus called
-phage. Homologous recombination is an event in which genetic materials are exchanged between two similar DNA molecules. The desired DNA fragment for modification (to be inserted in place of then natural viral DNA) is PCR amplified (a method to amplify DNA in vitro, used routinely in molecular biology research). A short homologous region is introduced at both ends of the desired DNA fragment by the PCR amplification. Finally, the region on viral DNA is replaced by the desired DNA fragment with the help of -phage recombination.
Degree project in applied biotechnology, Master of Science (2 years), 2009 Examensarbete i tillämpad bioteknik 45 hp till masterexamen, 2009
Biology Education Centre and Department of Oncology, Radiology and Clinical Immunology, Uppsala University
Supervisor: Magnus Essand
