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Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation

Genetic mutant organisms pervade all areas of Biology. Early on, herpesviruses (HV) were found to be amenable to genetic analysis using homologous recombination techniques in eukaryotic cells. More recently, HV genomes cloned onto a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) have become available. HV BAC...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Feederle, Regina, Bartlett, Emmalene J, Delecluse, Henri-Jacques
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21429237
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2042-4280-1-6
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author Feederle, Regina
Bartlett, Emmalene J
Delecluse, Henri-Jacques
author_facet Feederle, Regina
Bartlett, Emmalene J
Delecluse, Henri-Jacques
author_sort Feederle, Regina
collection PubMed
description Genetic mutant organisms pervade all areas of Biology. Early on, herpesviruses (HV) were found to be amenable to genetic analysis using homologous recombination techniques in eukaryotic cells. More recently, HV genomes cloned onto a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) have become available. HV BACs can be easily modified in E.coli and reintroduced in eukaryotic cells to produce infectious viruses. Mutants derived from HV BACs have been used both to understand the functions of all types of genetic elements present on the virus genome, but also to generate mutants with potentially medically relevant properties such as preventative vaccines. Here we retrace the development of the BAC technology applied to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and review the strategies available for the construction of mutants. We expand on the appropriate controls required for proper use of the EBV BACs, and on the technical hurdles researchers face in working with these recombinants. We then discuss how further technological developments might successfully overcome these difficulties. Finally, we catalog the EBV BAC mutants that are currently available and illustrate their contributions to the field using a few representative examples.
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spelling pubmed-30632282011-03-24 Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation Feederle, Regina Bartlett, Emmalene J Delecluse, Henri-Jacques Herpesviridae Review Genetic mutant organisms pervade all areas of Biology. Early on, herpesviruses (HV) were found to be amenable to genetic analysis using homologous recombination techniques in eukaryotic cells. More recently, HV genomes cloned onto a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) have become available. HV BACs can be easily modified in E.coli and reintroduced in eukaryotic cells to produce infectious viruses. Mutants derived from HV BACs have been used both to understand the functions of all types of genetic elements present on the virus genome, but also to generate mutants with potentially medically relevant properties such as preventative vaccines. Here we retrace the development of the BAC technology applied to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and review the strategies available for the construction of mutants. We expand on the appropriate controls required for proper use of the EBV BACs, and on the technical hurdles researchers face in working with these recombinants. We then discuss how further technological developments might successfully overcome these difficulties. Finally, we catalog the EBV BAC mutants that are currently available and illustrate their contributions to the field using a few representative examples. BioMed Central 2010-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3063228/ /pubmed/21429237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2042-4280-1-6 Text en Copyright ©2010 Feederle et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (<url>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0</url>), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Feederle, Regina
Bartlett, Emmalene J
Delecluse, Henri-Jacques
Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title_full Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title_fullStr Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title_full_unstemmed Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title_short Epstein-Barr virus genetics: talking about the BAC generation
title_sort epstein-barr virus genetics: talking about the bac generation
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21429237
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2042-4280-1-6
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