Gene Splicing
In gene splicing, scientists take a specific restriction enzyme to unravel a certain strand or strands of DNA. The DNA's double helix structure is then separated into single strands. With the strands separated, scientists add the desired base pairs to the separated DNA strands, modifying the genetic code of the DNA and will give the newly structured DNA the scientists desired. Finally, scientists use ligase, another enzyme, which causes the DNA to reform its double helix structure.What Does this mean?
One way of looking at Gene Splicing is to think of DNA being a sentence and a word in the sentence as being a specific sequence of the DNA. This would mean that every word (sequence) leads to a different trait in the sentence (DNA). In order to change a trait in a potato, scientists would cut out a word using scissors (restriction enzyme) and insert new letters into the word forming a new word. The word is then glued (ligase) back into the sentence. This new word results in a new trait. Now the potato has a modified trait.