Bacterial genes mediating antibiotic resistance Used to provide vectors with selectable markers. Bacterial plasmid genes and replication origins Used to enable vectors to replicate in bacterial hosts. Yeast replication elements Replication origins, centromeres, and telomeres are used to enable certain vectors to replicate in yeast. Modified bacteriophage are used as cloning vectors, and bacteriophage genes are also used to add functionality to many plasmid vectors. These elements are found in the natural plasmid backbones of many vectors, and also are a common source of antibiotic resistance genes.
Some vectors also contain functional transposable elements by design.
The definition line for a segment in the UniVec database is composed of three parts. The UniVec identifier for the parent sequence. A span specifying the location of the segment within the parent sequence. A short description of the sequence. The VecScreen output may include an alignment of the query sequence against a segment of vector contained in the UniVec database.