Hello

I have to write an article to this question:

"You search for genes in e.coli, which are involved in the detoxification of cadmium. Explain step-by-step how you proceed to identify the genes!"

Unfortunately I don't have an idea how to answer this question.
Perhaps sombody can give me a hint, or an idea.
Thanks a lot:)

Clairechen

Assuming that these genes allow E. coli to survive in the presence of a certain concentration of cadmium that would otherwise be lethal, you could randomly mutagenize the E. coli strain (using, for example, transposon mutagenesis) such that you create a library of random mutants. You could then plate this library at dilution on media that contains no cadmium but does contain whatever marker (say tetracycline resistance) the transposon carries, allow the mutants to form colonies, then replica plate them to media containg both cadmium and tetracycline.

Colonies that grow on the first set of plates (no cadmium) but fail to grow on the second set of plates (with cadmium) are investigated to ascertain what gene was interrupted (made mutant) by the insertion of the transposon.

Thank you very much
This will help me a lot.