Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • History
  • Published:

The servant with the scissors

Nature Structural Biology volume 7, pages 99–100 (2000)Cite this article

In 1978, Werner Arber (Biozentrum der Universität, Basel, Switzerland), Dan Nathans and Hamilton Smith (both at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of “restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics”. Almost immediately, the application of these enzymes to genetics led to “new and far reaching results”. In fact, it is hard to imagine what the biological sciences would look like today without restriction maps, cloning and the ability to alter genes at will, to name just a few everyday tools of the trade. But how did this crucial discovery come about?

While studying a phenomenon known as ‘host controlled restriction of bacteriophages’, Arber and Dussoix1,2,3 found that it provided bacteria with a defense mechanism against invading foreign DNA, such as viral DNA. This process, which was shown to be a property of the recipient bacteria, could be divided into two parts: restriction and modification. Restriction involved the endonucleolytic cleavage of DNA at specific DNA sequences. Because this would restrict viral growth, these enzymes came to be known as restriction enzymes. Modification involved nucleotide methylation at these same specific DNA sequences in the genome. In this way, the bacteria's own DNA was protected from cleavage because it was methylated while the inappropriately or unmodified foreign DNA was destroyed. Arber and Dussoix proposed that both processes were catalyzed by specific restriction and modification enzymes and that the DNA contained the specific sites to bind both types of enzymes. Over twenty years later the remarkable specificity of restriction enzymes is just now being understood (see pages 134 and 89 in this issue).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Arber, W. & Dussoix, D. J. Mol. Biol. 5, 18–36 (1962).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Dussoix, D. & Arber, W. J. Mol. Biol. 5, 37–49 (1962).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Dussoix, D. & Arber, W. J. Mol. Biol. 11, 238–246 (1965).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Smith, H. O. & Wilcox, K.W. J. Mol. Biol. 51, 379–391 (1970).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kelly, T. J. Jr. & Smith, H.O. J. Mol. Biol. 51, 393–409 (1970).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Roy, P. H. & Smith, H.O. J. Mol. Biol. 81, 427–444 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Roy, P. H. & Smith, H.O. J. Mol. Biol. 81, 445–459 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sack, G.H. Jr. & Nathans, D. Virology 51, 517–520 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Adler, S.P. & Nathans, D. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 299, 177–188 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Danna, K.J., Sack, G.H. & Nathans, D. J. Mol. Biol. 78, 363– 376 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. W. Arber's autobiographical sketch. http://mirror.nobel.ki.se/laureates (2000)

Download references

Authors
  1. Boyana Konforti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Konforti, B. The servant with the scissors. Nat Struct Mol Biol 7, 99–100 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/72469

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/72469

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing