Directed evolution has become a powerful tool not only for improving the utility of enzymes in industrial processes, but also
to generate variants that illuminate the relationship between enzyme sequence, structure, and function. The method most often
used to generate variants with random mutations is error-prone PCR. Error-prone PCR protocols are modifications of standard
PCR methods, designed to alter and enhance the natural error rate of the polymerase (1,2). Taq polymerase (3) is commonly used because of its naturally high error rate, with errors biased toward AT to GC changes. However, recent protocols
include the use of a newly-developed polymerase whose biases allow for increased variation in mutation type (i.e., more GC
to AT changes) (see
Note 1).