EcoRI

EcoRI
EcoRI crystal structure. Dimer bound to DNA (PDB 1ckq)
Identifiers
Symbol	EcoRI
Pfam	PF02963
InterPro	IPR004221
SCOP2	1na6 / SCOPe / SUPFAM
CDD	79lll
Available protein structures: Pfam   structures / ECOD   PDB RCSB PDB; PDBe; PDBj PDBsum structure summary

EcoRI (pronounced "eco R one") is a restriction endonuclease enzyme isolated from species E. coli. It is a restriction enzyme that cleaves DNA double helices into fragments at specific sites, and is also a part of the restriction modification system.^[1] The Eco part of the enzyme's name originates from the species from which it was isolated – "E" denotes generic name, "Escherichia", and "co" denotes species name, "coli" – while the R represents the particular strain, in this case RY13, and the I denotes that it was the first enzyme isolated from this strain.^{[citation needed]}

In molecular biology it is used as a restriction enzyme. EcoRI creates 4 nucleotide sticky ends with 5' end overhangs of AATT. The nucleic acid recognition sequence where the enzyme cuts is G↓AATTC, which has a palindromic complementary sequence of CTTAA↓G.^[2] Other restriction enzymes, depending on their cut sites, can also leave 3' overhangs or blunt ends with no overhangs.