Question

What is sequenase?

Answer 1

Sequenase:

1. Sequenase is a trading name for chemically altered enzymes.
2. These are appropriate for the dideoxy-mediated chain termination technique to determine the sequencing of longer DNA sequences.

Method to produce sequenase:

1. Enzymes are incubated with a reducing substance which inactivates their exonuclease activity.
2. The enzymes are treated with a lower quantity of reducing agents for a few days.
3. Commonly used reducing agents are ferrous ions and molecular oxygen.
4. These reducing compounds can eliminate nearly all exonuclease activity while having no effect on the polymerization activity.
5. But, it results in mutations and site-specific alterations in the enzymes.