Hi all,
In one of my biochemistry courses, we went over the cdc (cell division cycle) mutant screen using conditional mutants (temperature sensitive). Yeast cells were exposed to ultraviolet light (to cause DNA mutations). Next, they were plated and incubated at 25 degrees, then replica plated and incubated at 37 degrees. The temperature sensitive clones were isolated and examined for cdc mutants.
I am a little confused about the conditional mutants in general so my questions are...
1. What is the purpose of incorporating conditional mutants in an experiment? (I guess my question really is, how do they know the temperature sensitive clones contain cdc mutants?)
2. How exactly is it done? (If the explanation is really long and you don't want to do it, you can point me in the direction of some papers =D.)
Thank you so much!
Penny