[sci.bio] Restriction enzyme nomenclature

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (03/26/88)

	Is there an unambigious way to parse the name of the restriction
enzyme "BstXI"?  It's clear that "Bst" is the genus and species, but what
about the "XI" part?  Is this the eleventh enzyme isolated from Bst or is
it the first from Bst strain X?  I'm pretty sure the answer is the latter,
but how do you tell that from the name if you didn't know better?
-- 
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016

werner@aecom.YU.EDU (Craig Werner) (03/26/88)

In article <3214@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
> 
> 	Is there an unambigious way to parse the name of the restriction
> enzyme "BstXI"?  

The nomenclature is well defined (in an old article by Novick, I believe).

It goes something like

First Letter from Genus
Next Two from Species
Single Letter (this is bent a bit) from strain
Roman Number for order of discovery

Ergo:

EcoRI 	from E coli R plasmid I
HindIII  Haemophilus influenza type d III
BstXI    Bacillus steat.... strain X  I

From the relaxed rules:
Sau3AI   S. au.....  strain 3A     I  (In theory, there could be a Sau3AIII)
Tth111I  T. th.....  strain 111    I

-- 
	        Craig Werner   (future MD/PhD, 3.5 years down, 3.5 to go)
	     werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
                          "I just won't sleep, that's all."