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A Tour of Restriction Enzymes
What Are Restriction Enzymes?
Geoff Wilson, Senior Scientist and Division Head of the Restriction Enzyme Division at New England Biolabs, describes these fascinating enzymes from the perspective of someone who has been there from the beginning. Watch him explain exactly what they are, why they are relevant to all of us, and what they allow scientists to do.
The restriction enzyme depicted in this and the
following video is Mva1, and the crystal structure was originally
reported by Kaus-Drobek et al. in 2007 (Protein database ID: 2OA9).
How Do Restriction Enzymes Grab onto DNA?
Restriction enzymes grab onto DNA like a pair of hands. How do we know this? Geoff shows us some computer models of these enzymes, generated from real x-ray crystallography data. Watch and see how the translation of these data into images can help us understand the precision of an enzyme’s grip on DNA. For a moment we can imagine how it might look if we could see these molecules interact inside a cell.
