I was indeed talking about ds dna at the start, but when it enters the bacterium it becomes ss dna and then you have homologous recombination with ds dna and ss dna...
and thats where I am getting confused since homologous recombination is always explained with 2 ds dna pieces.
I understand that the with a double crossover only a piece of the plasmid is integrated, but you state that by single crossover the entire plasmid wille be integrated in the genome, isnt it possible that a little part of the plasmids dna isnt integrated?
PS. it is with double crossover that the mutation is tranferred, but there is absolutly no way how you can direct this, so its possible that the mutation isnt transferred at all then?
You do not know wich piece is tranferred....
I'm not familiar with how ssDNA recombines with dsDNA. I'm sure there are enzymes involved, but I can't explain the mechanism. It may be similar to, or the same as when dsDNA recombines. I don't know.
For your second question, for a single crossover event, the whole plasmid integrates. At least that's how I've always known it to occur. I don't see how a piece of the plasmid wouldn't integrate during a single crossover event.
For you last question, there is most definitely a way to direct homologous recombination... by using homologous sequences.
For a short example, say your gene sequence is:
AGTCTGCGATAGCAGAGTCCCCTGAAAGTGACTACGAGGG
and you want to remove the string of 4 Cs in the middle. You make a construct that is AGTCTGCGATAGCAGAGT-TGAAAGTGACTACGAGGG (where the (-) is the deletion). That sequence flanking the deletion will direct where recombination occurs. Recombination will only occur in areas where there is homologous DNA present.
However, if you're talking about transposons, phage, or other types of DNA, they can insert into non-homologous regions, but for the scope of what we're talking about here, the sequence flanking the mutation will direct where the recombination occurs.
For us, we need at least 500 bp on either side of a mutation for efficient recombination to occur. Sometimes up to 1 kb is needed. However, there are strains of E. coli (I think) and Salmonella (for sure) that have a lambda red phage that allows for recombination to occur with as few as 40 bp or so of flanking sequence.
Again, I don't know how all this translates to ssDNA recombining, but this is basically how it works for dsDNA, either linear or in a plasmid, recombining with genomic.