Chimeric genes manipulation

In models of MND, therapeutic manipulations, manipulation of expression of selected genes in specific cell populations [15, 16], creation of chimeric animals to test whether abnormalities are cell autonomous [17], administration of trophic factors to prevent trophic cell death [18-20] and testing of a variety of drug therapies [21-24] have been used to try to ameliorate phenotypes and thus provide insights into disease mechanisms and potential treatment strategies [1, 3, 4, 15, 25, 26]. Results of these studies are being used to design novel therapies to be tested in clinical trials in humans. 

Recombinant DNA technology not only allows researchers the ability to manipulate individual genes but to fuse genes encoding individual proteins together to develop chimeric or fusion proteins. These fusion proteins may have the fimction of one of the proteins, exhibit properties of both proteins, or acquire a new fimction altogether. The ELP sequence derived from elastin has been used... 

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