What are restriction enzymes? Restriction endonucleases (also known as restriction enzymes) act like molecular scissors, cutting double-stranded DNA at specific sequences. They are produced by many species of bacteria to protect themselves from invading viral DNA. The utility of restriction…
Tag: circular DNA molecule
Biotech Basics: A Plasmid Primer
What are plasmids? In 1952, Nobel Prize Winner Joshua Lederberg introduced the term ‘plasmid’, a double-stranded, circular DNA molecule that naturally exists in bacterial cells and some eukaryotes (Fig. 1). Plasmids have been used by molecular biologists to study, analyze,…