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Plasmid pUC18

    A plasmid is a circular dsDNA molecule a few hundred or thousand base pairs in circumference. Naturally-occurring plasmids are viruses of bacteria. The artificial plasmid pUC18 has been genetically engineered to include (1) a gene for antibiotic resistance to Ampicillin (ampR), and (2)  a gene (and its promoter) for the enzyme beta-galactosidase (lacZ). The lacZ gene contains a (3) polylinker region, with a series of unique restriction sites found nowhere else in the plasmid. Digestion with any one of these endonucleases will make a single cut that linearizes the circular plasmid DNA, and allow it to recombine with foreign DNA that has been cut with the same endonuclease.


Figures © 2002 by Griffiths et al.; all text material © 2014 by Steven M. Carr