The principle of genetic vaccination using naked bacterial plasmid DNA is surprisingly simple, yet the first reports on this technology were only made about a decade ago. In their seminal paper of 1990, Wolff et al. reported that injection of naked plasmid DNA encoding the bacterial enzyme -galactosidase into muscle cells could lead to direct gene transfer to the muscle cells, transcription in ...

After a new transformation procedure, 10% of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells were found to contain transforming DNA sequences. We used direct transfer of plasmid molecules by fusing bacterial minicell protoplasts to yeast protoplasts. Since the procedure significantly reduces the toxic effect of procaryotic protoplasm on the eucaryotic organism, it might be generally applicable in other systems ...

Eucaryotic messenger RNA precursors are processed in nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles (hnRNP). Here recent work on the structure of hnRNP is reviewed, with emphasis on function. Detailed analysis of a specific case, the altered assembly of hnRNP in heat-shocked Drosophila and mammalian cells, leads to a general hypothesis linking hnRNP structure and messenger RNA processing.

Chlamydia trachomatis proteins were electrophoresed and then transferred to nitrocellulose paper to detect chlamydial proteins which bind to eucaryotic cell membranes. Resolved polypeptides of C. trachomatis serovars J and L2 were reacted with iodinated HeLa cell membranes and autoradiographed. Infectious elementary bodies of both serovars possess 31,000- and 18,000-dalton proteins which bind t...

Hsp83 is a major eucaryotic heat shock protein and one of the most conserved proteins known. We have isolated an Escherichia coli gene homologous to eucaryotic Hsp83 and used it to construct a deletion mutation. The E. coli mutant was viable but had a slight growth disadvantage that increased with temperature.

A simple physical chemical method of transferring genes into eucaryotic cells is described. Electric impulses in the intensity range of 5-10 kV/cm with a duration of 5-10 bs were found to appreciably increase the uptake of DNA into cells. After electric field treatment, stable transformants were obtained in a system containing mouse cells deficient in thymidine kinase and a plasmid DNA harbouri...