A NOVEL SITE-SPECIFIC ENDONUCLEASE FROM BACILLUS SPECIES ST5

A site-specific endonuclease, R . BspST5I, has been isolated in functi onally pure state from the thermophilic strain Bacillus species ST5. T he enzyme recognizes the sequence 5'-GCATC-3' on DNA and cleaves it at a distance of five nucleotides from the 3'-end of the recognition sit e and at distances of nine or ten nucleotides along the complementary strand, depending on the nucleotide surrounding of the site on the DNA . The enzyme is an isomer of endonuclease SfaNI from Streptococcus fae calis ND547.