Recombination: All you always wanted to know. “Cold spring harbor symposia on quantitative biology, vol. XLIX, 1984: Recombination at the DNA level,” A.J.S. Klar and J. N. Strathern (eds.). New York: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 1984, 854 pp, $130.00
✍ Scribed by Zimmermann, Friedrich K.
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 1986
- Weight
- 224 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0192-2521
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This is a voluminous issue of 854 pages (including subject and author index) containing 91 contributions on investigations of genetic recombination at the DNA level as well as an introductory chapter by B.M. Alberts on "The DNA Enzymology of Protein Machines" and a summary by A. Campbell on "Types of Recombination: Common Problems and Common Strategies. " The research communications have been divided into 14 sections, and they cover all presently studied types of recombination of chromosomal organisms, especially yeasts and cultured mammalian cells, mitochondria, and transposons in bacteria and plants. A special section is dedicated to phage Mu, recombination in phage T4, Escherichiu coli, and also integration and excision of phage. Finally, there are sections on cell-free systems for the study of enzymes involved in recombination from bacterial and eukaryotic organisms. Most elegant is the section of recombination in vitro. The title of the book could be "All you always wanted to know about recombination at the DNA level." But there is even more than that. The section on repair contains exciting information. There is one basic drawback with this book: only very few contributions contain a summary. Unless one is fully dedicated to recombination research, one would not want to read all the 91 contributions, but rather only the ones that have bearing on a course being taught or research being conducted. The summarizing chapter by Campbell demonstrates that the information is so rich that it cannot be covered within a few printed pages.
I shall take a biased approach in briefly pointing out some articles that I think could be of general interest. Investigators of recombination have been working hard on defining the period of recombination during meiosis relative to other meiotic events. Borts et a1 report on their work with yeast in which they can detect the formation of recombined DNA segments during the course of meiosis. They had engineered a diploid strain in which crossing-over between a pair of homologous chromosomes results in nonparental DNA restriction fragments. They had two MATa genes on one chromosome, and two MATa genes on the homolog. The two copies were separated by sequences in which they could insert various genes. Crossing-over in these intervals resulted in nonparental restriction enzyme fragments that they could indentify on a southern blot with a DNA probe for the region between the repeated MAT genes. Meiosis can be initiated in yeast in a relatively synchronous fashion, and various parameters can be followed between the initiation of meiosis by a shift to a sporulation medium and the appearance of haploid spores. Even though cytology does not allow one to study the behavior of chromosomes, the course of DNA synthesis can be followed. Meiotic DNA synthesis in the strain used took place between roughly 2 and 8 hr after the transfer into the sporulation medium. Recombined DNA restriction