The discovery of restriction enzymes allows DNA to be manipulated, leading to the development of recombinant DNA technology that has many applications, for example, allowing the large scale production of proteins such as human insulin used by diabetic patients.

What is the purpose of restriction enzymes?

A restriction enzyme is an enzyme isolated from bacteria that cuts DNA molecules at specific sequences. The isolation of these enzymes was critical to the development of recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology and genetic engineering.

How are restriction endonucleases used by scientists in research?

Scientists use them to cut DNA molecules at interesting specific locations and then reattach different DNA sequences to each other using an enzyme called DNA ligase, creating new, recombined DNA sequences, or essentially new DNA molecules.