The temperature insensitive, thermostable, DNA polymerase was extracted from a bacterium found in hot springs can withstand the high temperatures needed to separate the double stranded DNA and the replication process can continue uninterrupted. The enzyme thermus aquaticus can withstand the high temperature used to separate double stranded DNA, so replication does not need to be interrupted by the need to add more enzymes.
Taq polymerase is an enzyme used in the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to make new strands form the existing strands.
This enzyme belongs to "type I" family of DNA polymerase enzyme which can withstand the high temperature which is required to separate the double-stranded DNA. This enzyme was extracted from a heat-tolerant bacterium called <em>Thermus aquaticus</em> in 1976.
