Novel Restriction Endonucleases, DNA Encoding These Endonucleases and Methods for Identifying New Endonucleases with the Same or Varied Specificity

Abstract

Specified restriction endonucleases have been characterized for the first time by their amino acid and DNA sequences. These sequences and those with at least 90% identity thereto have been used as probes in sequence similarity analyses to identify sequence matches in a sequence database that corresponds to novel restriction endonucleases or isoschizomers. The sequence similarity analyses includes selecting a positive sequence match from any sequence producing an expectation value of less than or equal to e−02.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An isolated protein having at least 90% amino acid sequence identity with SEQ ID NO: 104. 
     
     
         2 . An isolated protein having an amino acid sequence identified by an Expectation value of less than or equal to e−05 in a BLAST search for detecting sequence similarity using the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 104. 
     
     
         3 . The isolated protein according to  claim 2 , having restriction endonuclease activity. 
     
     
         4 . A method for identifying a restriction endonuclease, comprising:
 (a) selecting one or more probes having at least 90% sequence identity to a sequence selected from SEQ ID NO:104;   (b) comparing the one or more probes with a database of sequences by a sequence similarity analysis to identify a sequence match; and   (c) identifying the restriction endonuclease from the sequence match.   
     
     
         5 . A method according to  claim 4 , wherein the sequence is an amino acid sequence and the sequence similarity analysis comprises a BLAST search using an expectation value, E, of less than or equal to e−02. 
     
     
         6 . A method according to  claim 4 , wherein the sequence is an amino acid sequence and the sequence similarity analysis is a PSI-BLAST search using an expectation value, E, of less than or equal to e−02. 
     
     
         7 . A method for identifying a restriction endonuclease, comprising:
 (a) selecting one or more probes having at least 90% sequence identity to a known restriction endonuclease sequence;   (b) comparing the one or more probes with a database of sequences by a sequence similarity analysis to identify a sequence match, wherein the sequence match results from a sequence producing an expectation value, E, of less than or equal to e−02; and   (c) identifying the restriction endonuclease from the sequence match.