Home Tools & Resources Selection Charts Common Applications for Exonucleases and Endonucleases

Common Applications for Exonucleases and Endonucleases

Application Recommended Enzyme(s) Notes
Removal of 3′ overhangs Quick Blunting Kit
5′ overhang Fill in Treatment Quick Blunting Kit
Removal of single-stranded primers for nested PCR reactions Thermolabile Exonuclease I
Removal of primers post PCR prior to DNA sequencing or SNP detection Exonuclease I
Thermolabile Exonuclease I
Exonuclease VII
Msz Exonuclease I

 
Quick Heat inactivation versus Exonuclease I
For 3′ chemically modified primers
Quick Heat inactivation versus Exonuclease I for 3′chemically modified primers
Mapping positions of introns in genomic DNA Exonuclease VII
Removal of primers with or without 3′ or 5′ terminal phosphorothioate bonds Exonuclease VII

Generating ssDNA from linear dsDNA:

If 5′ → 3′ polarity required

If 3′ → 5′ polarity required

 

Lambda Exonuclease

Exonuclease III

 

Strand targeted for removal requires one 5′ end with phosphate

Strand targeted for removal requires a 5′ overhang, a blunt end, or a 3′ overhang (with less than 4 bases)
Preparation of nested deletions in double-stranded DNA Exonuclease III (E. coli)plusExonuclease VII
Site-directed mutagenesis Exonuclease III (E. coli)

T7 Exonuclease		 Removes nicked-strand DNA from 3′ to 5′

Removes nicked-strand DNA from 5′ to 3′
Nick-site extension T7 Exonuclease
Degradation of denatured DNA from alkaline-based plasmid purification methods for improving DNA cloning T5 Exonuclease
Removal of chromosomal/linear DNA in plasmid preparations T5 Exonuclease

Exonuclease V (RecBCD)		 Degrades linear ss + dsDNA, nicked DNA

Degrades linear ss + dsDNA: PREFERRED as Exo V will save nicked plasmids resulting in higher yields especially for low-copy number plasmid prep
Removal of unligated products (linear dsDNA) from ligated circular double-stranded DNA T5 Exonuclease

Exonuclease V (RecBCD)		 Only the un-nicked form of ligated circular double-stranded remains

Both nicked and unnicked-form of ligated circular double-stranded DNA remains
Removal of residual gDNA after purification of low copy plasmid Exonuclease V (RecBCD)
Removal of contaminated DNA from RNA samples

DNase I

DNase I-XT
Removal of template DNA from IVT reactions
 DNase I-XT
Conversion of single-stranded DNA or RNA to 5′-mononucleotides Nuclease P1
Analysis of base composition, potential damage and modification of nucleic acids Nuclease P1
Preparation of double-stranded DNA fragments with 5′-OH and 3′-phosphate Micrococcal Nuclease
Degradation of nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) in crude cell-free extracts Micrococcal Nuclease
Preparation of rabbit reticulocyte Micrococcal Nuclease
Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis Micrococcal Nuclease