[Memy]

Hello,

I have a question on Taq thermostable polymerase.

I have read that this is the most widely used enzyme for PCR tecniques, although it lacks a 3'to5' exonuclease activity.
Thus, why is it that widely used, since the PCR products will have lot of misincorporated nucleotides and thus low fidelity-copying is achieved with the Taq polymerase?

I have also read that it is sometimes selected based upon reliability and fussiness criteria.
Could someone explain what are these referred to?

thank you very much

maria

[Equi]

Many PCRs are not done for precise code-copies, but to create band patterns on electrophoresis gels (e.g. DNA fingerprints).

When cloning genes, which need to be expressed later, one usally uses Vent (or Takara Taq) polymerase.