Use of Molecular Genetic Engineering in the Study of Animal Parasites and Their Vectors

Molecular genetics coupled with advances in immunology and parasite culture has become a powerful tool to study animal parasites and their vectors. Recombinant DNA techniques allow one to identify individual genes of DNA probes, amplify the nucleic acid of interest, and use this material to study: the role of the gene product in the biology of the organism; the evolution of parasites and their hosts; heterogeneity between species and within species; taxonomy and develop refined taxonomic tools; the immunology and biochemistry of host-parasite interactions; identification of specific cells or tissues that produce gene products; cytogenetics and localization of genes on chromosome in the study of animal parasites and their vectors will be presented

A convenient and adaptable package of computer programs for DNA and protein sequence management, analysis and homology determination.

We describe the further development of a widely used package of DNA/protein sequence analysis programs (1). Important revisions have been made based on user experience, and new features, multi-user capability, and a set of large scale homology programs have been added. The programs are very user friendly, economical of time and memory, and extremely transportable. They are written in a version of FORTRAN which will compile, with a few defined changes, as FORTRAN 66, FORTRAN 77, FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN IV+, and others. They are running on a variety of microcomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes, in both single user and multi-user configurations