List of restriction enzyme cutting sites

A restriction enzyme or restriction endonuclease is a special type of biological macromolecule that functions as part of the "immune system" in bacteria. One special kind of restriction enzymes is the class of "homing endonucleases", these being present in all three domains of life, although their function seems to be very different from one domain to another.

The classical restriction enzymes cut up, and hence render harmless, any unknown (non-cellular) DNA that enters a bacterial cell as a result of a viral infection. They recognize a specific DNA sequence, usually short (3 to 8 bp), and cut it, producing either blunt or overhung ends, either at or nearby the recognition site.

Restriction enzymes are quite variable in the short DNA sequences they recognize. An organism often has several different enzymes, each specific to a distinct short DNA sequence.

Restriction enzymes catalog
The list includes some of the most studied examples of restriction endoncleases. The following information is given:The whole list contains more than 1,200 enzymes, but databases register about 4,000. To make a list that is accessible to navigation, this list has been divided into different pages. Each page contains somewhere between 120-150 entries. Choose a letter to go to a specific part of the list: