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OwnerMartin Chalfie, Dattananda S. Chelur +3inventors
InventorsMartin Chalfie, Dattananda S. Chelur, Glen G. Ernstrom, C. Andrea Yao, Miriam B. Goodman
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The present invention relates to methods and compositions which enable the propagation of vectors containing cDNAs whose presence has hitherto been toxic to conventional bacterial strains. It is based, at least in part, on the discovery that a bacterial strain having an insertional mutation in the malT gene of Escherichia coli tolerated the propagation of a mec-4 cDNA-containing plasmid which was toxic to other bacterial strains. The methods and compositions of the invention may be particularly useful in the propagation of cDNAs encoding membrane proteins. The present invention also provides for ion channel assay systems comprising MEC-2, MEC-4, MEC-10 or variants thereof.
A method for producing a bacterial strain which tolerates the propagation of a toxic vector, comprising exposing a bacterial culture to a mutagen and then identifying and isolating a bacterium which has developed a mutation in the malT gene, and culturing the isolated bacterium to produce the toxic-vector-tolerant bacterial strain.
A bacterial strain that is tolerant to the propagation of a toxic vector and which carries a mutation in the malT gene.
A composition comprising a complex selected from the group consisting of (i) a heteromeric complex comprising two or more proteins selected from the group consisting of MEC-2, human stomatin, MEC-4, MEC-10, and a MEC-variant, where the complex does not consist essentially of a combination of proteins selected from the group consisting of MEC-2 and MEC-10, MEC-2 and MEC-10d, human stomatin and MEC-10 and human stomatin and MEC-10d, and (ii) a homomeric complex of a protein selected from the group consisting of MEC-4 and a variant thereof.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.