linguistic:paraphrasing, information:highlighting
DNA ligase is a type of enzyme that facilitates the joining of DNA strands together by catalyzing the formation of a phosphodiester bond. It plays a role in repairing single-strand breaks in duplex DNA in living organisms, but some forms may specifically repair double-strand breaks. Single-strand breaks are repaired by DNA ligase using the complementary strand of the double helix as a template, with DNA ligase creating the final phosphodiester bond to fully repair the DNA. DNA ligase is used in both DNA repair and DNA replication. In addition, DNA ligase has extensive use in molecular biology laboratories for recombinant DNA experiments. Purified DNA ligase is used in gene cloning to join DNA molecules together to form recombinant DNA.