restriction enzymes

Cultural  

1. Chemicals used in the lab to cut up DNA at specific sites so that it may be sequenced. They function in nature as a form of bacterial self-protection that can cut up foreign DNA. The use of restriction enzymes is crucial in DNA fingerprinting.

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restriction enzymes

Standard methods for assembling long DNA molecules typically use restriction enzymes to make cuts and T4 DNA ligase to connect the resulting fragments.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026

Developed by synthetic biologist Sylvestre Marillonnet and his colleagues at Icon Genetics in Halle, Germany, Golden Gate uses specialized proteins known as type IIS restriction enzymes to make targeted cuts in DNA strands4.

From Nature ● Feb. 23, 2020

Instead of reproducing DNA replication in a test tube and making different fragment lengths with special nucleotides, a DNA sample is chopped into pieces with special molecular scissors called restriction enzymes.

From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2019

These plasmid vectors contain many short DNA sequences that can be cut with different commonly available restriction enzymes.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013

For example, basic studies of bacterial resistance to viruses led to the discovery of restriction enzymes, the biological scissors that can snip DNA segments at precisely defined locations.

From Time Magazine Archive