A cosmid is a type of hybrid plasmid that contains a Lambda phage cos sequence. [1] . Often used as cloning vectors in genetic engineering, cosmids can be used to build genomic libraries. They were first described by Collins and Hohn in 1978. [2] .

Un cosmide, originariamente descritto da Collins e Hohn nel 1978, è un tipo di vettore utilizzabile nelle tecniche di clonaggio [1] tipiche dell' ingegneria genetica.

Cosmids are medium-sized cloning vectors. The cloning capacity of these vectors is 35–45 kbp. The first cosmid vector was described by Collins in 1978. Cosmid vectors are developed by combining the features of the plasmid vector and the bacteriophage vector.

a class of CLONING VECTOR which comprises a bacterial PLASMID and the COS SITE of a BACTERIOPHAGE, typically bacteriophage lambda. A cosmid combines features of plasmids and of bacteriophages and can be used in CLONING. Large DNA fragments, up to 40 KILOBASE pairs in size, can be cloned in cosmids.

Evidence is presented that ColE1 hybrid plasmids carrying the cohesive-end site (cos) of lambda can be used as gene cloning vectors in conjunction with the lambda in vitro packaging system of Hohn and Murray [ (1977) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 74, 3259--3263].

Cosmids are plasmids that contain bacteriophage packaging sequences to enable insertion of the cloned DNA into λ phage heads. The technique of packaging ligated DNA into a viral protein coat provides a convenient and efficient selection for uniformity in the size of cloned DNA, ensuring an insert size of between 35 and 45 kb.

Un cosmide est un vecteur artificiel constitué d'un plasmide hybride contenant la séquence cos du phage lambda 1. Le nom « cosmide » est un mot-valise formé à partir de cos et plasmide.

Cosmid libraries can represent an entire genome in a library of circular DNA molecules, allowing for the faithful amplification, cloning and isolation of large genomic DNA fragments.

COSMID is made available to non-profit academic/research institutions at free-of-cost for the purpose of internal research and development only. For-profit institutions or companies can obtain access to COSMID via a license agreement. For further details, please contact Peng Qiu at [email protected].

Cosmids are engineered vectors that combine characteristics of both plasmids and phage. They have been constructed to include a fragment of λ that includes the cos site (Figure 6.7). Cloning into cosmids is similar to cloning in λ.