E.coli strain for MAGE

Escherichia coli cells used in MAGE experiments are modified to allow the efficient incorporation of the ssDNAs (oligos) to the bacterial genome.

Lambda-phage protein

This E. coli strain harbors a plasmid encoding gene for the homologous recombination proteins (λ Red system). These proteins are too toxic to be expressed constitutively and therefore, they must be transiently induced.

The genes encoding the homologous recombination protein are under the control of a promoter, which can induce the gene expression in different ways, depending on its type. If the promoter is temperature sensitive, the induction is performed by heat-shock. In the case of pMA7 plasmid, the promoter is arabinose-inducible. Therefore, to induce the expression of the recombination protein, arabinose should be added to the culture.

MMR deficient

MMR stands for mismatched repair. This E. coli strain is mut S-deficient, which increases the ARF. This strain also lacks the protein that binds to the mismatched position to identify them for repair.