Microfluidics can be used to trap just one DNA-enzyme molecule in its native state for analysis without having to immobilise the DNA or the enzyme.
Enzymes are used to chop up DNA so they make useful tools in biochemistry. To see how they recognise and cut up DNA, the enzyme or DNA needs to be immobilised, but this can mess up and change the DNA. To stop this, you put an enzyme to DNA, and feed it through a microfluidic system. This traps the complex, and then stretches it out. Adding Mg2+ then activates the enzyme, cutting the DNA, and letting you see it easily. This can give info about how restriction enzymes act to determine their job to do, which will help us in a DNA-protein experiments.
This is cool since we can now actually see how DNA works and in real tine for once, not after it's cut up and dead-ish. We can learn a lot more this way. Don't you want to look at your DNA? I do. And we can see all the important stuff that makes it work too.
I mean, what if, one day, we could replicate DNA and choose not to have diseases, and create life itself. Yes, it's a go complex, but you could cure every genetic disease and make cloning more exact, not tiny mutations in copies. It would be safer. Every little bit of knowledge can lead to all sorts of ideas, and it's worth trying them all. Or at least I think so. Hmm?
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