In the past seven to eight years we have witnessed the development of a new DNA technology that has fundamentally altered our approach to modern genetics. The basic ingredients of this new technology are the cleavage-site-specific restriction enzymes: a special class of bacterial endonucleases that can recognize specific nucleotide sequences in duplex DNA and produce double-stranded cleavages. ...

There are three mechanisms by which foreign DNA may enter a prokaryotic organism: conjugation between Gram-negative bacteria, uptake of exogenous DNA (transformation) and infection by viral (bacteriophage) nucleic acid. The interaction between a bacteriophage and its host bacterial cell has been extensively investigated. A bacterium can restrict phage infection through its ability to degrade th...

Data on DNA polymorphisms detected by restriction endonucleases are rapidly accumulating. With the aim of analyzing these data, several different measures of nucleon (DNA segment) diversity within and between populations are proposed, and statistical methods for estimating these quantities are developed. These statistical methods are applicable to both nuclear and nonnuclear DNAs. When evolutio...

Any survey of Type-I1 restriction endonucleases requires a consideration of the various specificities that are the hallmark of these enzymes. The latest compilation of the restriction-enzyme list contains more than 200 enzymes, which exhibit more than 50 unique specificities (Roberts, 1980). Because these enzymes have demonstrated their greatest value as biochemical tools, classification of the...

We describe in this article an in vitro system for the selection of restriction endonucleases using artificial cells. The artificial cells are generated in the form of a water-in-oil emulsion by in vitro compartmentalization. Each aqueous compartment contains a reconstituted transcription/translation mix along with the dispersed DNA templates. In the compartments containing endonuclease genes, ...

Methyltransferases (MTases) of procaryotes affect general cellular processes such as mismatch repair, regulation of transcription, replication, and transposition, and in some cases may be essential for viability. As components of restriction-modification systems, they contribute to bacterial genetic diversity. The genome of Helicobacter pylori strain 26695 contains 25 open reading frames encodi...

Herein, a double-stranded (ds) DNA microarray-based resonance light scattering (RLS) assay with multifunctional gold nanoparticle (GNP) probes has been developed for studying restriction endonuclease functionality and inhibition. Because of decreasing significantly melting temperature, the enzyme-cleaved dsDNAs easily unwind to form single-stranded (ss) DNAs. The ssDNAs are hybridized with mult...

Variant DNA sequences flanking the human insulin gene were found in the Danish population using restriction endonucleases (restriction fragment length polymorphism). The frequencies of these DNA sequences were determined in 47 non-insulin-dependent diabetics and 93 control individuals. We report an association between a restriction fragment length polymorphism of the insulin gene and NIDDM.

In this paper we define splicing rules for class II restriction endonucleases and show how a Turing Machine can be simulated using such rules.