In molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

, DNA ligase is a specific type of enzyme, a ligase

Ligase

In biochemistry, ligase is an enzyme that can catalyse the joining of two large molecules by forming a new chemical bond, usually with accompanying hydrolysis of a small chemical group dependent to one of the larger molecules...

, that repairs single-stranded discontinuities in double stranded DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 molecules, in simple words strands that have double-strand break (a break in both complementary strands of DNA). Purified DNA ligase is used in gene cloning to join DNA molecules together. The alternative, a single-strand break, is fixed by a different type of DNA ligase using the complementary strand

Complementary DNA

In genetics, complementary DNA is DNA synthesized from a messenger RNA template in a reaction catalyzed by the enzyme reverse transcriptase and the enzyme DNA polymerase. cDNA is often used to clone eukaryotic genes in prokaryotes...

 as a template, but still requires DNA ligase to create the final phosphodiester bond

Phosphodiester bond

A phosphodiester bond is a group of strong covalent bonds between a phosphate group and two 5-carbon ring carbohydrates over two ester bonds. Phosphodiester bonds are central to all known life, as they make up the backbone of each helical strand of DNA...

 to fully repair the DNA.

DNA ligase has applications in both DNA repair

DNA repair

DNA repair refers to a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as UV light and radiation can cause DNA damage, resulting in as many as 1...

 and DNA replication

DNA replication

DNA replication is a biological process that occurs in all living organisms and copies their DNA; it is the basis for biological inheritance. The process starts with one double-stranded DNA molecule and produces two identical copies of the molecule...

 (see Mammalian ligases).