Circular DNAs are extra-chromosomal fragments that become circularized by genomic recombination events. We have recently shown that yeast LTR elements generate circular DNAs through recombination events between their flanking long terminal repeats (LTRs). Similarly, circular DNAs can be generated by recombination between LTRs residing at different genomic loci, in which case the circular DNA wi...

Prophages represent a large fraction of prokaryotic genomes and often provide new functions to their hosts, in particular virulence and fitness. How prokaryotic cells maintain such gene providers is central for understanding bacterial genome evolution by horizontal transfer. Prophage excision occurs through site-specific recombination mediated by a prophage-encoded integrase. In addition, a rec...

Integration, excision, and inversion of defined DNA segments commonly occur through site-specific recombination, a process of DNA breakage and reunion that requires no DNA synthesis or high-energy cofactor. Virtually all identified site-specific recombinases fall into one of just two families, the tyrosine recombinases and the serine recombinases, named after the amino acid residue that forms a...

Supplementary Figure 1. Schematic representation and dose-response curves of different recombinase switches. a | Mechanistic illustration of the underlying recombination processes indicating the region of interest (ROI) being modified by a recombinase and the site-specific recombination sites (blue triangles). b | Detailed description of the recombinase switches. In order to express a target ge...

Specialized type I topoisomerases catalyze DNA strand transfer during site-specific recombination in prokaryotes and fungi. As a rule, the site specificity of these systems is determined by the DNA binding and cleavage preference of the topoisomerase per se. The Mr 32,000 topoisomerase I encoded by vaccinia virus (a member of the eukaryotic family of "general" type I enzymes) is also selective ...

In the budding yeast of Saccharomyces cerevisiae the tandem repeated of rDNA genes are located onchromosome XII, which is in the nucleolus. There are different types of proteins in the nucleoluskeleton,silencing proteins have got important role in nucleolus.It is shown that meiotic recombination between nonsister chromatids in the rDNA genes are stronglysuppressed, and s...