Practice question

Inverse polymerase chain reaction based mutagenesis allows mutation of entire plasmid without subcloning. Divergent primers containing desired change amplify around circular template generating linear mutated product. Reaction mixture retains original non-mutated parental plasmid isolated from methylation-competent Escherichia coli, which could transform and cause background wild-type colonies. DpnI is a restriction endonuclease that recognizes methylated and hemimethylated sequence 5 prime GATC methylated at adenine by Dam methylase. It cleaves parental methylated DNA into fragments unable to replicate, enriching for newly synthesized unmethylated mutated plasmid, increasing mutagenesis efficiency and reducing false positives.