Definition of Endonuclease



The endonuclease is an enzyme that is responsible for breaking the phosphodiester bonds that are present between the nucleotides. This enzyme digests the bond from the middle of the polynucleotide chain. There are two types of endonucleases i.e. specific or non-specific. The endonucleases that are specified for a particular sequence of DNA are known as restriction endonucleases.

 


They are extracted from a number of bacteria and archaebacteria and all of them are site-specific. The site from which the chain is digested becomes single-stranded and the ends of it are termed as sticky ends. The endonucleases have a tendency to cleave double as well as single-stranded DNA and even RNAs too.

 

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