"Eco RI is one of the most frequently used in what's called recombinant DNA technology," says Rosenberg, "or in the jargon 'cloning.' These enzymes recognize a particular sequence of bases of DNA and cut the DNA at those sites, breaking it into well-defined pieces that can be put back together in new combinations. Eco RI is the prototype, the first one of these enzymes to be understood and the first one used in this technology."
Largely as a result of Rosenberg's in-depth research on Eco RI, it is the paradigm example of these "exquisitely precise scalpels," as Stanford's Lubert Stryker calls restriction enzymes (in his textbook Biochemistry). "With Eco RI," explains Rosenberg, "we're trying to really get at the basic recognition process. One of the most intriguing questions in molecular biology today is whether general recognition principles will emerge from the details of these individual recognition mechanisms."
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