What is reverse transcriptase, and why is it an important tool of recombinant DN

Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme produced by retroviruses. This enzyme allows these viruses to carry out their unique life cycle, which involves the production of double-stranded DNA molecules from an RNA template. This activity is exploited in the lab to produce cDNA molecules from mRNA isolated from a cell. cDNA is a useful molecule because it does not contain any intron sequences normally present in eukaryotic genes; it essentially represents the genetic information in its "final form" from the viewpoint of the cell. Thus, cDNA is ideal for expressing human (or eukaryotic) genes in bacteria because all of the RNA processing (which is unique to eukaryotes) has already been done.