Method for in vitro molecular evolution of protein function involving the use of exonuclease enzyme and two populations of parent polynucleotide sequence

The present invention relates to a method for in vitro evolution of protein function. In particular, the method relates to the shuffling of nucleotide segments obtained from exonuclease digestion. The present inventors have shown that polynucleotide fragments derived from a parent polynucleotide sequence digested with an exonuclease can be combined to generate a polynucleotide sequence which encodes for a polypeptide having desired characteristics. This method may be usefully applied to the generation of new proteins (e.g., antibodies and enzymes) or parts thereof having modified characteristics as compared to the parent protein.