REBASE--restriction enzymes and methylases

Abstract

REBASE contains comprehensive information about restriction enzymes, DNA methylases and related proteins such as nicking enzymes, specificity subunits and control proteins. It contains published and unpublished references, recognition and cleavage sites, isoschizomers, commercial availability, methylation sensitivity, crystal data and sequence data. Homing endonucleases are also included. Most recently, extensive information about the methylation sensitivity of restriction enzymes has been added and a new feature contains complete analyses of the putative restriction systems in the sequenced bacterial and archaeal genomes. The data is distributed via email, ftp (ftp.neb.com) and the Web (http://rebase. neb.com).

Figure 1

The page detailing the methylation sensitivity for the restriction enzyme, BanI. The second column, labeled ‘cleavage impaired’, indicates that cleavage is slow when this modification is present. Sometimes this means that rates have been explicitly measured and shown to be much slower than usual, but more often it is inferred from an observation of incomplete digestion under conditions more than sufficient to give complete digestion. For each observation the paper(s) in which the result is documented is listed or, in the case of unpublished observations, the author(s) and contact information can be found from the link in the reference column.