Skip to main content
Nucleic Acids Research logoLink to Nucleic Acids Research
. 1997 Aug 15;25(16):3196–3198. doi: 10.1093/nar/25.16.3196

Restriction endonuclease isoschizomers ItaI, BsoFI and Fsp4HI are characterised by differences in their sensitivities to CpG methylation.

B H Ramsahoye 1, A K Burnett 1, C Taylor 1
PMCID: PMC146892  PMID: 9241230

Abstract

BsoFI , ItaI and Fsp4HI are isoshizomers of Fnu4HI (5'-GC NGC-3'). Both Fnu4HI and BsoFI have previously been shown to be inhibited by cytosine-specific methylation within the recognition sequence. Fnu4HI is inhibited if either the internal cytosine at position 2 or the external cytosine at position 5 of the restriction sequence is methylated, but the precise nature of the methylation sensitivity of BsoFI is unclear from the literature. The methylation sensitivities of ItaI and Fsp4HI have not previously been reported. By methylating the plasmid pUC18 with M.SssI (a DNA cytosine-5'-methyltransferase with a specificity for CpG), we have determined that ItaI is sensitive only to methylation of internal CpG sites within the restriction sequence. The methylation sensitivity of Fsp4HI is identical to that of Fnu4HI, being inhibited by methylation of either internal CpG sites or overlapping CpG sites. BsoFI , like the other isoschizomers tested, is sensitive to a combination of internal and overlapping CpG methylation. BsoFI is also sensitive to overlapping CpG methylation (in the absence of internal CpG methylation) if CpG overlap with both sides of the recognition sequence. Sites containing one overlapping CpG (in the absence of internal CpG) are cut when methylated but show marked individual variation in their rates of cleavage. Considerable variation in the rate of cleavage by BsoFI is also observed at sites containing only internal methylated CpG. Some sites are cut slowly, whilst others fail to cut even after prolonged incubation with excess of enzyme.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (148.6 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Brook J. D., McCurrach M. E., Harley H. G., Buckler A. J., Church D., Aburatani H., Hunter K., Stanton V. P., Thirion J. P., Hudson T. Molecular basis of myotonic dystrophy: expansion of a trinucleotide (CTG) repeat at the 3' end of a transcript encoding a protein kinase family member. Cell. 1992 Feb 21;68(4):799–808. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(92)90154-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Deissler H., Genç B., Doerfler W. Restriction endonuclease BsoFI is sensitive to the 5'-methylation of deoxycytidines in its recognition sequence. Nucleic Acids Res. 1995 Nov 11;23(21):4227–4228. doi: 10.1093/nar/23.21.4227. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Fu Y. H., Kuhl D. P., Pizzuti A., Pieretti M., Sutcliffe J. S., Richards S., Verkerk A. J., Holden J. J., Fenwick R. G., Jr, Warren S. T. Variation of the CGG repeat at the fragile X site results in genetic instability: resolution of the Sherman paradox. Cell. 1991 Dec 20;67(6):1047–1058. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(91)90283-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Hansen R. S., Gartler S. M., Scott C. R., Chen S. H., Laird C. D. Methylation analysis of CGG sites in the CpG island of the human FMR1 gene. Hum Mol Genet. 1992 Nov;1(8):571–578. doi: 10.1093/hmg/1.8.571. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Mahadevan M., Tsilfidis C., Sabourin L., Shutler G., Amemiya C., Jansen G., Neville C., Narang M., Barceló J., O'Hoy K. Myotonic dystrophy mutation: an unstable CTG repeat in the 3' untranslated region of the gene. Science. 1992 Mar 6;255(5049):1253–1255. doi: 10.1126/science.1546325. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. McClelland M., Nelson M., Raschke E. Effect of site-specific modification on restriction endonucleases and DNA modification methyltransferases. Nucleic Acids Res. 1994 Sep;22(17):3640–3659. doi: 10.1093/nar/22.17.3640. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Oberlé I., Rousseau F., Heitz D., Kretz C., Devys D., Hanauer A., Boué J., Bertheas M. F., Mandel J. L. Instability of a 550-base pair DNA segment and abnormal methylation in fragile X syndrome. Science. 1991 May 24;252(5009):1097–1102. doi: 10.1126/science.252.5009.1097. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Städtler P., von Strandmann R. P., Walter T., Frey B., Auer H., Hengstenberg W., Schmitz G. Purification and characterisation of the restriction endonuclease ItaI from Ilyobacter tartaricus recognizing 5'-GC decreases NGC-3'. Gene. 1993 Dec 31;137(2):347–348. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(93)90033-y. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Verkerk A. J., Pieretti M., Sutcliffe J. S., Fu Y. H., Kuhl D. P., Pizzuti A., Reiner O., Richards S., Victoria M. F., Zhang F. P. Identification of a gene (FMR-1) containing a CGG repeat coincident with a breakpoint cluster region exhibiting length variation in fragile X syndrome. Cell. 1991 May 31;65(5):905–914. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(91)90397-h. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Nucleic Acids Research are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES