Phys.org June 18, 2018
An international team of researchers (USA – DOE, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Sandia National Laboratory, Germany, Denmark) has developed an oligonucleotide synthesis strategy that uses the template-independent polymerase terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT). They securely tether an unblocked nucleotide to TdT, so that after the nucleotide is added to a growing DNA molecule, the enzyme remains attached and itself protects the end of the chain from further additions. After the DNA molecule has been extended, they cut the linking tether to release the enzyme and re-expose the end for the next addition. With greater accuracy, the technique could produce DNA strands 10 times longer than today’s methods. This approach may form the basis of an enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesizer…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab researchers have tweaked a natural human enzyme to create a process that can lengthen oligonucleotide chains repetitively. Credit: Marilyn Chung, Berkeley Lab