Team:Alberta/References/Publications/Shear induced assembly of lambda phage DNA

Charbel Haber and Denis Wirtz

Biophys J. 2000 September; 79(3): 1530–1536


<b>Abstract:</b> Recombinant DNA technology, which is based on the assembly of DNA fragments, forms the backbone of
biological and biomedical research. Here we demonstrate that a uniform shear flow can induce and control the assembly of
l-phage DNA molecules: increasing shear rates form integral DNA multimers of increasing molecular weight. Spontaneous
assembly and grouping of end-blunted l-phage DNA molecules are negligible. It is suggested that shear-induced DNA
assembly is caused by increasing the probability of contact between molecules and by stretching the molecules, which
exposes the cohesive ends of the otherwise undeformed l-phage DNA molecules. We apply this principle to enhance the
kinetics and extent of DNA concatenation in the presence of ligase. This novel approach to controlled DNA assembly could
form the basis for improved approaches to gene-chip and recombinant DNA technologies and provide new insight into the
rheology of associating polymers.


'''Link:''' [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1301046 PubMed]