Functional gene function discovery

Plant Viruses as Gene Function Discovery Tools... 

T.S. Ro-Choi. 1999. Nuclear snRNA and nuclear function (discovery of 5 cap structures in RNA) Crit. Rev. Eukaryotic Gene Expr. 9 107-158. (PubMed)... 

The recent explosion in the discovery of new myosin genes has led to the idea that myosins from different classes probably co-exist in cells. This has raised the obvious question as to what functions these myosins subserve within cells. Up to now, only the genes have been cloned for many of the 35 unique myosins. But this is not a question that can be answered solely by cloning rather, it is absolutely imperative to biochemically characterize these proteins if we are to understand their physiological properties. One way to do this is to express the entire protein or parts of the proteins in bacteria, yeast, or insect cells, and to then purify and characterize... 

Significant strides have been made in past decades with development of new therapies that have led to the ever-lengthening CF life-span. Since the discovery of the CF gene and the CFTR protein defect, research has focused on gene therapy as a way to restore normal CFTR function through DNA transfer. 

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