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Trial and Error: How the Unclonable Human Mitochondrial Genome was Cloned in Yeast

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ABSTRACT

Purpose

Development of a human mitochondrial gene delivery vector is a critical step in the ability to treat diseases arising from mutations in mitochondrial DNA. Although we have previously cloned the mouse mitochondrial genome in its entirety and developed it as a mitochondrial gene therapy vector, the human mitochondrial genome has been dubbed unclonable in E. coli, due to regions of instability in the D-loop and tRNAThr gene.

Methods

We tested multi- and single-copy vector systems for cloning human mitochondrial DNA in E. coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, including transformation-associated recombination.

Results

Human mitochondrial DNA is unclonable in E. coli and cannot be retained in multi- or single-copy vectors under any conditions. It was, however, possible to clone and stably maintain the entire human mitochondrial genome in yeast as long as a single-copy centromeric plasmid was used. D-loop and tRNAThr were both stable and unmutated.

Conclusions

This is the first report of cloning the entire human mitochondrial genome and the first step in developing a gene delivery vehicle for human mitochondrial gene therapy.

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Abbreviations

ARS:

autonomous replicating sequence

BAC:

bacterial artificial chromosome

D-loop:

displacement loop

mtDNA:

mitochondrial DNA

PAC:

P1 phage artificial chromosome

TAR:

transformation-associated recombination

TB:

terrific broth

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & DISCLOSURES

This work was supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust Muller Bequest to CC. BWB, AYL and AS are supported by the UK society for Mucopolysaccharide diseases and the Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stem Cell & Neurotherapies, Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, University of Manchester, 3.721 Stopford Building, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK

    Brian W. Bigger, Ai-Yin Liao & Ana Sergijenko

  2. Gene Therapy Research Group, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, Imperial College London, London, SW7 5AZ, UK

    Charles Coutelle

Authors
  1. Brian W. Bigger
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  2. Ai-Yin Liao
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  3. Ana Sergijenko
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  4. Charles Coutelle
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian W. Bigger.

Electronic supplementary materials

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Table 1

PCR and sequencing primers (DOCX 21 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

PCR conditions (DOCX 12.8 kb)

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Bigger, B.W., Liao, AY., Sergijenko, A. et al. Trial and Error: How the Unclonable Human Mitochondrial Genome was Cloned in Yeast. Pharm Res 28, 2863–2870 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11095-011-0527-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11095-011-0527-1

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