What is the range of DNA sizes that can be inserted into a plasmid?

Also, I wish to know what is the range of DNA sizes that can be cloned into the following vectors: BACs, YACs, Cosmids and Fosmids.

Thank you!What is the range of DNA sizes that can be inserted into a plasmid?
a plasmid can only contain inserts of about 1-20 kbp.



The bacterial artificial chromosome's usual insert size is 150-350 kbp, but can be greater than 700 kbp.



A yeast artificial chromosome (short YAC) is a vector used to clone large DNA fragments (larger than 100 kb and up to 3000 kb).



Cosmids are able to contain 37 to 52 kbp of DNA.



Fosmids are 40 kb.What is the range of DNA sizes that can be inserted into a plasmid?
1. Plasmids. Bacterial plasmids are small circular DNA molecules that are distinct from, aswell as additional to the main bacterial chromosome.They replicate their DNA independently of the bacterial chromosome. Many different types of plasmids have been found in bacteria. The distribution of any one plasmid within a species is generally sporadic; some cells have the plasmid, whereas others do not. The F (sex) plasmid can be used as a vector for carving large donor DNA inserts. However, the plasmids that are routinely used as vectors are those that carry genes for drug resistance. The drug-resistance genes are useful because drug-resistant phenotype can be used to select not only for cells transformed by plasmids, but also for vectors containing recombinant DNA. Plasmids are also efficient means of amplifying cloned DNA because there are many copies per cell, as many as several hundred for some plasmids. However the plasmids are not useful for cloning DNA fragments larger than 20kb.

2. Phage lambda (Phasmids). Phage l is a convenient cloning vector for several reasons. First, A phage heads will selectively package a chromosome about 50 kb in length and secondly in phage vector recombinant molecules are automatically packaged into infective phage particles which can be conveniently stored and handled experimentally.

3. Cosmids. Cosmids are vectors that are hybrids of l phages and plasmids, and their DNA can replicate in the cell like that of a plasmid or be packaged like that of a phage. However, cosmids can carry DNA inserts about three times as large as those carried by l itself (as large as about 45 kb). The key is that most of the l phage structure has been deleted, but the signal sequences that promote phage-head stuffing ( called cos sites) remain.Thus the name cosmid has come from cos site and plasmid. This modified structure enables phage heads to be stuffed with almost all donor DNA. Cosmid DNA can be packaged into phage particles by using the in vitro system. Due to their larger cloning capacity, cosmids have proven to be the most valuabler cloning vehicles for larger genes or gene clusters.

4. Single-stranded phages. Some phages contain only single-stranded DNA molecules. On infection of bacteria, the single infecting strand is converted into a double-stranded replicative form, which can be isolated and used for cloning. The advantage of using these phages as cloning vectors is that single-stranded DNA is the very substrate required for the Sanger method DNA sequencing technique currently in widespread use. Phage M13 is one most widely used for this purpose.

YAC

The primary advantage of YACs is the potential for cloning large insert sizes (ranging from 100 to 150 kb

BAC

bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) vectors have been used to clone human DNA with inserts as large as 300 kb

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