From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Fri Jan 03 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!munnari.OZ.AU!comp.vuw.ac.nz!news.hn.netlink.co.nz!southern.co.nz!not-for-mail From: bsandle@southern.co.nz (Brian Sandle) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination,sci.med,sci.bio.technology,alt.war Subject: Recombinant bio-weapons=>pets,families,Gulf War? Date: 4 Jan 1997 07:54:11 GMT Organization: Southern InterNet Services Lines: 9 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <5al2b3$lhe@orm.southern.co.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: kalessin.southern.co.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950621BETA PL0] Xref: biosci bionet.molbio.recombination:334 sci.med:146058 sci.bio.technology:6736 A post to the BITSERV MCS-NEURO list says there is trouble in Southern Iraq, too. If the Iraqi Scud missiles and destroyed factories contained only chemical toxins then why would the pets of the Gulf War veterans be dying and the families be suffering, as Sadam Hussein warned? Brian Sandle From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Tue Jan 14 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!rutgers!news.sgi.com!news.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!tezcat!gail.ripco.com!nntp.neu.edu!jmularel From: jmularel@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Joshua Mularella) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination Subject: jurassic park Date: 15 Jan 1997 20:38:38 GMT Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115, USA Lines: 4 Message-ID: <5bjf8e$9q1@chaos.dac.neu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lynx.dac.neu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] I am doing a report on the feasibility of jurassic park. your comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Joshua mularella From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Fri Jan 17 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!internet!biosci!not-for-mail From: biohelp (BIOSCI Administrator) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination Subject: BIOSCI/bionet miniFAQ & Fundraiser Date: 18 Jan 1997 02:00:10 -0800 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 239 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <199701181000.CAA04114@net.bio.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net (LAST REVISION: 30-JUL-95) This BIOSCI "miniFAQ" is designed to answer the questions that come up the *most frequently*. The main BIOSCI FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is accessible on the World Wide Web at URL http://www.bio.net/. If you can not find an answer to your question in this or other documentation, the BIOSCI technical support staff answers e-mail queries sent to biosci-help@net.bio.net We can only answer questions about the use of the newsgroups and mailing lists. We unfortunately do not have the staff to do Internet information searches or answer scientific questions. Please post those to the appropriate BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups. Contents: -------- 0) BIOSCI NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!! 1) Using the WWW to access the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups. 2) What to do about "spams," i.e., junk mail, ads, etc. 3) Examples of subscribing and unsubscribing to the mailing lists. 4) The BIOSCI user address and research interest directory. 0) BIOSCI NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!! ------------------------------ BIOSCI's government funding has been expended, and we are now operating solely from advertising revenue that we have raised from our Web site at http://www.bio.net/. We need just a few minutes of your time to help us serve you. You can do two important things which will take very little time for you individually and will immensely help us continue to help you. First, please use our WWW system at http://www.bio.net/ to access the archives. You can post or reply to messages via your Web browser as described in item #1 below. Your usage helps attract sponsors. If you contact any of our sponsors, please be sure to thank them for supporting BIOSCI. It is critical for them to get this feedback if they are to continue their sponsorship for the long term. Second, if you work for a company or organization that provides products or services of interest to the biology community, please pass this message on to your marketing or marketing communications department or other appropriate group. Please ask them to help support BIOSCI by sponsoring our Web site and explain the uses and benefits of the system to the biology community. If they are interested, they can then contact us for further information at our tech support address, biosci-help@net.bio.net. 1) Using the WWW to access the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups. -------------------------------------------------------- As of 10 December 1995, all BIOSCI/bionet full newsgroups are accessible through the World Wide Web (WWW) at URL http://www.bio.net. One can read and reply publicly or privately to both recent postings and archived messages through one's Web browser if it is configured properly to send e-mail. Each newsgroup is equipped with its own WAIS index. The main BIOSCI home page also has access to the BIO-JOURNALS Table of Contents database WAIS index and the BIOSCI user address database described in another item further below. 2) What to do about "spams," i.e., junk mail, ads, etc. ------------------------------------------------------- BIOSCI is a set of parallel USENET newsgroups (the "bionet" groups), mailing lists, and a hypermail archive at URL http://www.bio.net/. The same postings are distributed on all media (except for a small number of mailing-list-only groups at net.bio.net). Unfortunately it is becoming a despicable practice on the Internet (by a few people out to make a fast buck) to do automated mass postings to thousands of newsgroups and mailing lists. These attempts to grab free advertising are refered to as "spams" in the usual, somewhat boneheaded, net terminology. USENET is more susceptible to this practice, and many spams originate on the USENET groups and then are passed on to the mailing lists. However, spammers also get lists of mailing addresses and hit these too, so neither medium is immune. What should you do personally if you get junk mail? --------------------------------------------------- Just delete it and move on without reading it further. Filing a protest is becoming increasingly useless because spammers are often disguising the addresses where the messages are sent from. Unless you really understand Internet mail systems, your attempt at protest by sending replies to the message will often end up being sent to the address of an innocent person that the spammer is victimizing. What can BIOSCI/bionet do to protect its newsgroups? ---------------------------------------------------- The only solution currently available is to moderate the newsgroup. If this newsgroup is already moderated, then you are in good shape. Moderation protects the USENET distribution from about 95% of the spams that are being sent to date and protects the mailing lists completely. Moderation means, however, that someone has to take the time to review each message before it goes out. We have set up software here that simply allows the moderator to forward to an address at net.bio.net messages that (s)he wishes to have distributed. This takes no more time than that needed to read the message and pass it on, say about 1 min. per message. Most newsgroups currently have a discussion leader who is responsible for their newsgroup. The discussions leaders and their e-mail addresses are listed in the BIOSCI Information Sheet which is available on the Web at http://www.bio.net/. If a newsgroup is being hit with too many junk postings, please contact the discussion leader for that group and see if there is interest in moderating the group. Please do not assume that by simply posting a complaint to the newsgroup itself, anyone on the BIOSCI staff will act on your complaint. With close to 100 newsgroups to run, the BIOSCI staff has to rely on the discussion leaders of each newsgroup to report problems directly to us at biosci-help@net.bio.net. We will moderate any of our newsgroups if the discussion leader tells us that the readership of the group wishes to do so and if a moderator is willing to do the work. For most BIOSCI/bionet groups, this entails only a few minutes of work each day. Moderating a newsgroup will resolve probably 95% of the junk postings on the USENET distribution. Unfortunately there are easy ways for determined spammers to override the moderation mechanism on USENET, but we can protect our e-mail subscribers from unwanted postings if the newsgroup is moderated. You can also access our newsgroups over the WWW at URL http://www.bio.net. While this Web interface will not stop spammers from trying to post to the groups, this will give you yet another way, besides using USENET news, to keep the junk out of your personal mail files. For those of you with local USENET news systems, the Web interface will also give you faster access to new newsgroups and recent postings. 3) Examples of subscribing and unsubscribing to the mailing lists. ------------------------------------------------------------------ PLEASE NOTE: The BIOSCI management does NOT act on subscription/unsubscription requests that are posted improperly to the newsgroups and mailing lists. People who do this only bother everyone on the lists to no avail. Please be sure to follow the proper procedures below. Gory details are in the BIOSCI Information sheets on the Web at http://www.bio.net. Below we give an example utilizing the METHODS-AND-REAGENTS list at both of our two BIOSCI sites: Users in the Americas and Pacific Rim countries who use the BIOSCI ------------------------------------------------------------------ node at computer net.bio.net: ---------------------------- A) Determine the "listname" which is the <=8 character mail address ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ for the group. These can be found in the BIOSCI Info. Sheet. For the METHODS-AND-REAGENTS group the mailing address is methods@net.bio.net. The listname is the portion of the address to the left of the @ sign, i.e., "methods". The listname is used with the "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" commands illustrated below. B) Mail all commands in the body of a mail message addressed to biosci-server@net.bio.net. Do NOT send commands to the newsgroup posting addresses! Leave the Subject: line blank, any text on it will be ignored. C) In the body of your message put one or more of the following commands with an "end" command on the last line, e.g., subscribe methods unsubscribe methods end Do NOT put your e-mail address or other text on these lines. The server only allows you to cancel your subscription if the address on your mail header matches the address on our mailing list. Please ask for help at biosci-help@net.bio.net if your address has changed, e.g., if you know you are on the list but the server tells you that you are not a member. Users in Europe, Africa, and Central Asia who use the BIOSCI node at -------------------------------------------------------------------- computer daresbury.ac.uk (also known as dl.ac.uk): ------------------------------------------------- To subscribe and unsubscribe to/from the BIOSCI lists, you need to specify the full USENET newsgroup name with "bionet-news." prepended. The USENET newsgroup names are listed in the BIOSCI Information sheet on the Web at http://www.bio.net/. For the METHODS-AND-REAGENTS list the USENET newsgroup name is bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts, thus the appropriate commands are sub bionet-news.bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts unsub bionet-news.bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts These commands are included in a message addressed to mxt@dl.ac.uk, NOT to the newsgroup mailing addresses. As usual, include the text in the body of the message as text on the Subject: line is ignored. To unsubscribe from all the lists at the UK node, use unsub bionet-news Please note that if the address in the list is different than the one in your mail message header, you will not be able to unsubscribe by this method. If you have problems, please mail biosci@daresbury.ac.uk. 4) The BIOSCI user address and research interest directory. ----------------------------------------------------------- Please take this opportunity to add your name, address, and research interest information to the BIOSCI User Address Database if you have not already done so. You can fill out the address form directly through our Web page at URL http://www.bio.net/adrform.html. The address database is reindexed nightly for WWW access (the URL is http://www.bio.net/). If you are not directly on the Internet but can reach it by e-mail, please use our waismail server to access the user directory. waismail use is described above. You can also request a user address form by e-mail from biosci-help@net.bio.net. Please check your database entry from time-to-time to see if your address information is still up-to-date. Because of our limited personnel resources, we ask that you resubmit a *complete* form to revise your entry; we only replace complete entries and do not have resources to edit old forms. Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson BIOSCI/bionet Manager biosci-help@net.bio.net From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Wed Jan 29 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!JULIET.UCS.INDIANA.EDU!JCLAY From: JCLAY@JULIET.UCS.INDIANA.EDU (JANE CLAY) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination Subject: Two short courses on Recombinant DNA Date: 30 Jan 1997 07:25:13 -0800 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 48 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <199701301526.KAA11591@belize.ucs.indiana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net Indiana University will offer two lab-based short courses on recombinant DNA in June this year. They are: Recombinant DNA Technology - June 2-6 Topics include: DNA and cloning vector manipulation PCR technology preparation of recombinant DNA transformation of bacterial cells selection and assay of cloned and amplified fragments of "foreign: DNA Southern blot analysis preparation of nonradioactive DNA probes use of web sites in research and teaching Application of Recombinant DNA Technology: RFLP and Fingerprinting Analysis, RAPD Analysis, and DNA Sequencing - June 9-13 Topics include: DNA sequencing RAPD analysis of genomic DNA fingerprinting and RFLP analysis of genomic DNA electroporation of bacterial cells chemiluminescent detection of nucleic acids application of computers to DNA sequencing data analysis preparation of random fragment sequencing libraries and double-stranded DNA for sequencing use of the BioNeb cell and biopolymer disruption system DNA sequencing using an automatic DNA sequencer use of web sites for molecular biology Participants in both courses are invited to work on a sample of genomic DNA from their own research organism. For more information: http://www.Indiana.edu/~scs/dna.html JClay@Indiana.edu 812-855-6329 Jane Clay Associate Director Division of Continuing Studies Owen Hall 204 Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 Phone: 812-855-6329 Fax: 812-855-8997 email: JClay@Indiana.edu From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Wed Jan 29 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!daresbury!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!sn.no!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!feed1.news.erols.com!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!gail.ripco.com!nntp.neu.edu!jmularel From: jmularel@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Joshua Mularella) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination Subject: recombinant embryo? Date: 30 Jan 1997 18:21:09 GMT Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115, USA Lines: 6 Message-ID: <5cqoql$a3h@chaos.dac.neu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lynx.dac.neu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] I'm doing a report on jurassic park and was wondering if you think it would be possible to somehow place dino dna in a bird egg and sperm, combine the two, and attach the zygote in the uterus of the bird to let it grow. What do you think? Joshua Mularella From owner-recombination@net.bio.net Thu Jan 30 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!daresbury!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!sn.no!nntp.uio.no!news.apfel.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!192.89.123.24!nntp.inet.fi!news.funet.fi!news.helsinki.fi!biotekmac19.pc.helsinki.fi!user From: "Harri Savilahti" Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.recombination,bionet.molbio.hiv Subject: post doc,transpositional recombination Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 15:06:18 +0200 Organization: Biotekniikan instituutti Lines: 98 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: biotekmac19.pc.helsinki.fi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet Mail and News for Macintosh - 1.0 (22) Xref: biosci bionet.molbio.recombination:346 bionet.molbio.hiv:2907 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI post doctoral position for 3 years TRANSPOSITIONAL DNA RECOMBINATION Send an application with a CV and two references Harri Savilahti, Ph.D. Institute of Biotechnology Viikinkaari 9 00014 University of Helsinki FINLAND tel. int-358-9-708 59516, FAX int-358-9-708 59366 E-mail: harri.savilahti@helsinki.fi GENERAL BACKGROUND During the last few decades it has become clear that genomes are not rigid and stable. Segments of DNA are moved, inverted, duplicated and extensively multiplied within living cells; sometimes seemingly purposefully (e. g. switching of immunoglobulin genes), sometimes fortuitously (e. g. many of the transposition reactions). Very often the results are harmful to the organism (e.g. many of the rearrangements that ultimately lead to cancer). Many viruses modify genomes by integrating their DNA into the genome of their host organisms; the consequences can be disastrous (e. g. AIDS caused by HIV). DNA recombination is a term that describes all rearragements within the genome. However, the usage of this term was originally limited to genetic recombination during cell division (homologous recombination). The mechanim(s) of recombination are essential for living cells and as such an important area of study. In addition, understanding of different kind of recombination reactions apparently creates possibilities for applications, especially in medicine but also in many fields of biotechnology/genetic engineering. Future gene therapy and plant breeding are dependent on mastering such reactions. DNA transposition DNA transposition is a recombination reaction in which a DNA element (a transposon) moves from one location to another in the genome of its host organism. The underlying molecular mechanisms are universal from lower prokaryotes to higher eukaryotes. At the molecular level retrovirus integration is also a transposition reaction. In this reaction specific protein molecules utilizing tightly controlled biochemical reactions excise a piece of DNA and splice it to another location in the genome. Bacteriophage Mu multiplies by using efficient transposition; transposition is facilitated by transposition complexes Bacteriophage Mu is a virus that replicates by using the mechanisms of DNA transposition. Of the known transposition systems it is by far the most efficient and its transposition reaction was the first to be established in vitro Mu transposition reactions proceed in the context of specific protein-DNA complexes, in the heart of which is the critical functional and structural component, the transposase. In Mu this protein is MuA and it catalyzes the DNA cleavage and joining reactions. It functions in transposition as a tetramer which also synapses the two transposon ends. We have shown that under certain reaction conditions fully functional Mu transposition complexes (transpososomes) can be formed in vitro by using short synthetic Mu-specific DNA segments and MuA protein. When the active transposition complex has been formed it can react, in principle, with any other DNA molecule (target DNA). Because we now can make transposition complexes from its minimal components in vitro this offers an excellent opportunity to study the governing principles in transposition at the molecular level. Recent publications: Baker, T. A., Mizuuchi, M., Savilahti, H. and Mizuuchi, K.1993: Division of labor among monomers within the Mu transposase tetramer. -Cell 74: 723-733. Clubb, R. T., Omichinski, J. G., Savilahti, H., Mizuuchi,K., Gronenborn, A. M. and Clore, G. M. 1994: A novel class of winged helix-turn-helix protein:The DNA binding domain of Mu transposase. -Structure 2: 1041-1048. Savilahti, H., Rice, P. A. and Mizuuchi, K. 1995: The phage Mu transpososome core: DNA requirements for assembly and function. -EMBO Journal 19: 4893-4903. Clubb, R. T., Mizuuchi, M., Huth, J. R., Omichinski, J. G., Savilahti, H., Mizuuchi, K., Clore, G. M. and Gronenborn, A. M. 1996: The wing of the enhancer binding domain of Mu phage transposase is flexible and essential for efficient transposition. -Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93:1146-1150. Savilahti, H. and Mizuuchi, K. 1996: Mu transpositional recombination: donor DNA cleavage and strand transfer in trans by the MuA transposase. -Cell 85:271-280.