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Nomenclature of restriction enzymes consists three parts:

  1. Indicates the genus and species of specific organism by using abbreviation into three letters. EXAMPLE: Eco is for Escherichia coli; here first letter ‘E’ is for genus whereas last two letters ‘co’ is for species.
  2. Indicates the strain of the relevant species by using a letter, number or its combination.
  3. Indicate specific restriction modification systems present in the same organism or strain by using a roman numeral.

EXAMPLE: the name of EcoRI restriction enzyme is derived as:

E : Escherichia (genus)

co : coli (species)

R : RY13 (strain)

I : first identified in the bacterium