Site-directed mutagenesis.

Site-directed mutagenesis is a PCR-based method to mutate specified nucleotides of a sequence within a plasmid vector. This technique allows one to study the relative importance of a particular amino acid for protein structure and function. Typical mutations are designed to disrupt or map protein-protein interactions, mimic or block posttranslational modifications, or to silence enzymatic activity. Alternatively, noncoding changes are often used to generate rescue constructs that are resistant to knockdown via RNAi.