SGI-DNA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Synthetic Genomics Inc company, announced the launch of the Gibson Assembly Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit which allows researchers to efficiently and accurately perform site-directed mutagenesis on DNA fragments.

This kit is the third in SGI-DNA’s Gibson Assembly portfolio, which empowers life science researchers to substantially increase their ability to build genes, edit them, and study their functions using nucleotide insertions, substitutions, or deletions. The Gibson Assembly Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit has been optimised to maximise the number of gene editing studies scientists can perform, as it uses less DNA starting material, accommodates larger DNA fragments, and has a higher efficiency compared to existing kits.

The Gibson Assembly method was developed in 2009 by Daniel Gibson and his colleagues at the J. Craig Venter Institute during the team’s quest to construct the first synthetic cell. Since its introduction to the life science community, the Gibson Assembly method has become a mainstay in many synthetic biology laboratories and has attracted interest from both the academic and commercial life sciences community due to its ease-of-use, robustness, and flexibility. The Gibson Assembly Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit complements the Gibson Assembly HiFi 1-Step Kit and the Gibson Assembly Ultra Kit, which have been developed and optimised for robust DNA assembly by SGI-DNA in close collaboration with Daniel Gibson’s research group at Synthetic Genomics.

“I’m pleased that the DNA assembly technologies we developed to build the first synthetic cell can now be used by other scientists to study genes, families, and pathways more completely,” said Dan Gibson. “Molecular biologists can now greatly advance their genomics research by increasing their capacity to study the activities of genes and proteins.”

Starting with a circular or a linear DNA template up to 25 kilobases in length, scientists can now introduce up to 5 site directed mutations in a single round. The Gibson Assembly Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit enables researchers to accommodate one or up to five site mutations with efficiencies of 95 per cent and 55 per cent respectively. Only 5 nanograms of DNA starting material is needed with this kit, compared to other commercially available kits that require up to 100 nanograms of DNA. The Gibson Assembly Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit is available in 2 sizes: 5 reactions (starter kit) and 10 reactions.