Sticky Ends

Name:
Sticky Ends
Detailed information:
After digestion of a DNA with certain restriction enzymes, the ends left have one strand overhanging the other to form a short (typically 4 nt) single-stranded segment. This overhang will easily re-attach to other ends like it and become known as “sticky ends.”The overhangs thus produced can still hybridize (“anneal”) with each other, even if they came from different parent DNA molecules, and the enzyme ligase will then covalently link the strands. Sticky ends therefore facilitate the ligation of diverse segments of DNA, and allow the formation of novel DNA constructs.