The biology of restriction and anti-restriction

Abstract

The phenomena of prokaryotic restriction and modification, as well as anti-restriction, were first discovered five decades ago but have yielded only gradually to rigorous analysis. Work presented at the 5th New England Biolabs Meeting on Restriction-Modification (available on REBASE, http://www.rebase.com) and several recently published genetic, biochemical and biophysical analyses indicate that these fields continue to contribute significantly to basic science. Recently, there have been several studies that have shed light on the still developing field of restriction-modification and on the newly re-emerging field of anti-restriction.