GENE CLONING

Recombination

 

Recombinant DNA technology or recombination was invented by Paul Berg, Herbert W. Boyer and Stanley N. Cohen. Recombination involved the introduction of genomic DNA form one organism to another organism. The recombination process was followed by replication and expression to study the function of particular inserted DNA fragment.

 

The main purpose of Berg carried out recombination was to study the possibility of a virus to be used as vector and carried the inserted foreign genes. First, Berg carried out DNA splicing experiment. Both of the bacterial virus DNA and simian virus DNA (host) were restricted by EcoRI. Both of the restricted DNA fragments were allowed to mix and rejoined into loop.

 

But, Berg did not direct introduce the recombinant DNA into the host. This was because the recombinant DNA carried lethal gene that might cause cancerous tumors if the lethal gene success to escape from the laboratory. However, in 1972, Herbert W. Boyer and Stanley N. Cohen success to insert the recombinant DNA into bacterial host and the foreign DNA would able to replicate naturally.