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Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Measurement of In Vitro Integration Activity of HIV-1 Preintegration Complexes
Published on: February 22, 2017
Bxb1 integrase serves as a highly efficient DNA recombinase in rapid metabolite pathway assembly
Xianwei Wang1, Biao Tang1,2,3, Yu Ye4
1Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Department of Microbiology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
Abstract:
Phage-encoded serine integrases are widely used in genetic engineering. They also have the potential to serve as efficient DNA assemblers, demonstrated by the method of site-specific recombination-based tandem assembly (SSRTA) that can combine biological parts into devices, pathways, and systems. Here, four serine integrases, ϕBT1, TG1, ϕRv1, and Bxb1, were investigated to ascertain their in vitro DNA assembly activities. Bxb1 integrase displayed the highest efficiency to obtain final products. Thus, we conclude that Bxb1 integrase is an excellent choice for DNA assembly in vitro Using this enzyme and its recognition sites, BioBrick standards were designed that are compatible with the SSRTA method for module addition. A rapid and efficient procedure was developed for the assembly of a multigene metabolic pathway in one step, directly from non-cutting plasmids containing the gene fragments. This technique is easy and convenient, and would be of interest to the synthetic biology community.
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