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History of Restriction Enzymes Meeting Summary

History of Restriction Enzymes Meeting Summary. Stu Linn University of California, Berkeley. Some Items Noted for Restriction and Modification Studies. There were a number of small meetings devoted especially to restriction and modification a nd closely related topics.

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History of Restriction Enzymes Meeting Summary

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  1. History of Restriction EnzymesMeeting Summary Stu Linn University of California, Berkeley

  2. Some Items Noted for Restriction and Modification Studies There were a number of small meetings devoted especially to restriction and modification and closely related topics. And, there were numerous short visits to other laboratories to collaborate on the development of new ideas. Will email, Skype, and Google successfully replace these?

  3. We Must Understand that “Small Science” Also Yields Big Returns In all parts of the world, pressures from the political arena are demanding that science funding must be predicated upon sure and rapid returns in the form of benefits to society and/or economic development and “translational” possibilities. Indeed, to my knowledge, only Singapore seems truly interested in funding basic biomedical science. While current technologies require interdisciplinary collaborations and access to expensive analytical equipment, in these days of mega-grants and 20+ person publications, we must remember that small basic fundamental research projects also are significant in the long run. Examples include, of course, the early work on restriction and modification discussed here as well as the basic work of Luria, Bertani, Weigle, etc. But we also have the work of Jacob, Monod, Lwoff, Wollman, Pardee, and their many other colleagues. Of course, each of these advances has generated and will continue to generate concerns of an ethical nature such as the creation of new species which were discussed at the Asilomar Conference.

  4. Some Hot and Future Items for Restriction and Modification Studies Some basic questions that I would like to see addressed The evolution of R/M systems: From where did they evolve? (recombination?) How did the EcoB and EcoK systems diverge? Are there other, unknown functions for R/M systems?

  5. Some Hot and Future Items for Restriction and Modification Studies (2) Some current areas of interest The role of restriction sites on plasmids in modulating the generation of drug-resistant bacterial strains. (G. A. Roberts, et al. (2013) Nuc. Ac. Res.41: 7472-7484.) The modulation by restriction enzymes of direct transfer of whole genomes among unrelated organisms. E.g., bacteria to yeast (B. J. Karas, et al. (2013) Nature Methods10: 410-412.) The discovery of new restriction enzyme specifities to study hmC, 5-hmU, 5-formylC, 5-carboxylC. (J. G. Borgaro and Z. Zhu (2013) Nuc. Ac. Res. 41: 4198-4206; L.M. Iyer, et al. (2013) Nuc. Ac. Res. 41: 7635-7655.) The application of high throughput strategies to characterize restriction endonuclease reactions. (N. Kamps-Hughes, et al. (2013) Nuc. Ac. Res. 41: e119.) In depth studies of restriction endonuclease diffusion and the role of ATP. (F. W. Schwarz, et al. (2013) Science340: 353-356.)

  6. Some Hot and Future Items for Restriction and Modification Studies (3) The development of restriction nucleases with novel specificities The application of artificial restriction nuclease-like constructs for heritable targeting TALENS (Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases) ZFNs (artificial Zinc-Finger Nucleases) CRISPER-Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)- (CRISPER-associated genes) The development of increased accessibility, robustness and fidelity of these systems

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