genetics
- Plant Microbiology | SpotlightStable Transformation of the Actinobacteria Frankia spp.
The absence of genetic tools for Frankia research has been a major hindrance to the associated field of actinorhizal symbiosis and the use of the nitrogen-fixing actinobacteria. This study reports on the introduction of plasmids into Frankia spp. and their functional expression of green fluorescent protein and a cloned gene. As the first step in developing genetic tools, this technique opens up the field to a wide...
- Biodegradation | SpotlightRapid, Parallel Identification of Catabolism Pathways of Lignin-Derived Aromatic Compounds in Novosphingobium aromaticivorans
The identification of the genes involved in specific biochemical transformations is a key step in predicting microbial function from nucleic acid sequences and in engineering microbes to endow them with new functions. We have shown that new techniques for transposon mutagenesis can dramatically simplify this process and enable the rapid identification of genes in uncharacterized pathways. These techniques provide the necessary scale to...
- Environmental MicrobiologyArsenic Detoxification by Geobacter Species