Recombination is a process by which pieces of DNA are broken and recombined to produce new combinations of alleles. In 1964, Robin Holliday proposed a model for understanding molecular basis of recombination that accounted for heteroduplex formation and gene conversion during recombination. A new modified major model for recombination was given by Jack Szostak and colleagues in 1983, it is called the doublestrand-break model. The initial steps in finding enzymes that carry out recombination were genetic screens for mutants of E. coli that are defective in recombination. One of the major pathways for generating 3‟ single-stranded termini uses the RecBCD enzyme. | An overview on molecular basis of genetic recombination
