Introduction - Gene Cloning

When DNA is extracted from an organism, all of its genes are extracted at one time. Out of this DNA, which contains thousands of different genes, the genetic engineer must find the one specific gene that encodes the specific protein of interest.

Finding and making copies of a specific gene is called gene cloning. Since there is no way to locate a gene by visibly looking at all of the DNA, scientists make gene libraries to catalogue the organism’s DNA and then select the gene he/she is looking for from this library.

The process of gene cloning. (Image by P. Hain)