Splicing Circular Strings

Abstract

In certain circumstances — in several bacteria, for instance — the DNA molecules are present in the form of a circular sequence. More generally, we can consider situations where both linear and circular DNA sequences are present. The restriction enzymes can cut both the linear and the circular double stranded sequences, hence recombination by ligation can also appear in such a case. Many variants are possible, because a recombination can have as input two circular strings, or one circular and one linear string, and can have as output one or two circular strings, one or two linear strings, or both a circular and a linear string.