identification of RE - (May/17/2008 )

Hi,

Just wondering how new restriction enzymes can be identified?
What kinda techniques were used to find out or develop new restriction enzymes?
Thanks and Cheers!

People search for them, then patent the results. They look for new species and novel genes. Typically this is done by gentle native lysis of cells, addition of a standard DNA substrate (such as Lambda DNA) and analysis of the cutting evident (if any). Methylated and unmethylated DNA is often used to find unusual specificities. Analysis of the genomic data is also important, especially the raw bulk meta-genomic environmental survey data, looking for new enzymes. Those would be synthesized from scratch and tested. Some enzymes are designed or modified from wild type versions (the NEB nicking enzymes, e.g.). Essentially all information on restriction enzymes can be found at the REBASE database, maintained by Rich Roberts at NEB, (http://rebase.neb.com).

Thanks!

a new article about enzyme prediction came out:

Prediction of enzyme function by combining sequence similarity and protein interactions

Espadaler,J, Eswar,N, Querol,E, Aviles?F, Sali?A, Marti-Renom?M, Oliva?B

BMC Bioinformatics, 2008 9:249 (27 May 2008)