Gibson Deletion: a novel application of isothermal in vitro recombination

BACKGROUND: Recombinant DNA technology is today a fundamental tool for virtually all biological research fields. Among the many techniques available for the construction of a “custom DNA” molecule, the isothermal in vitro assembly, or Gibson assembly, allows for an efficient, one-step, scarless recombination-based assembly. RESULTS: Here, we apply and characterize the use of Gibson assembly for the deletion of DNA sequences around a DNA cut. This method, that we named “Gibson Deletion”, can be used to easily substitute or delete one or more restriction sites within a DNA molecule. We show that Gibson Deletion is a viable method to delete up to 100 nucleotides from the DNA ends of a cleavage site. In addition, we found that Gibson Deletion can be performed using single strand DNA with the same efficiency as using double strand DNA molecules. CONCLUSIONS: Gibson Deletion is a novel, easy and convenient application of isothermal in vitro assembly, that performs with high efficiency and can be implemented for a broad range of applications. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12575-018-0068-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.