Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-NC-SA
Restriction endonucleases (REs), which recognize and specifically cleave DNA sequences, are part of bacterial defense systems. The exquisite specificities of REs have made them valuable tools in the molecular biology laboratory. In this module, students devise and conduct a strategy to distinguish plasmids by the patterns of fragments generated by RE digestion. Students use agarose gel electrophoresis to resolve DNA digestion products. This module is part of a semester-long introductory laboratory course, Investigations in Molecular Cell Biology, at Boston College.