Nuclease

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An enzyme responsible for catalyzing the hydrolysis of nucleic acids, leading to the separation of nucleotide units
2. A catalyst in biochemical processes that cleaves nucleic acid structures by hydrolyzing the links between nucleotides
3. An enzyme that cuts DNA or RNA molecules by breaking the bonds between nucleotides

Etymology: "Nuclease" is a compound built from two parts: "nucleo-", from Latin "nucleus" meaning "kernel" or "core," and the suffix "-ase," which chemists use to name enzymes. The "-ase" ending was adopted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as enzyme names were standardized, so it marks a substance as a biological catalyst rather than describing its action directly. The "nucleo-" element points to the nucleus of the cell, where the nucleic acids were first found. Friedrich Miescher isolated a phosphorus-rich substance from cell nuclei in 1869, which he called "nuclein," and the term "nucleic acid" followed from that work. A nuclease, then, is an enzyme named for the nucleic acids it acts on: it breaks the chemical bonds linking the nucleotides that make up DNA and RNA.