DNA assembly: simple and super-sized

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute have developed an in vitro method for assembling DNA fragments into molecules several hundred kilobases long in a quick, one-step reaction.¹ The method should make the construction of DNA molecules and gene clusters for biosynthetic applications simpler and easier than it is with existing approaches to DNA synthesis.

Biosynthesis usually requires assembling large recombinant genes or entire gene clusters for expression in microorganisms such as yeast or bacteria. But the assembly of such large molecules is difficult to accomplish with traditional methods such as restriction cloning or specialized types of PCR that can only synthesize DNA molecules in a laborious stepwise fashion...