endonuclease

English Thesaurus

1. a nuclease that cleaves nucleic acids at interior bonds and so produces fragments of various sizes (noun.substance)

hypernym	:	nuclease,
definition	:	general term for enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of nucleic acid by cleaving chains of nucleotides into smaller units (noun.substance)

hyponym	:	restriction endonuclease, restriction enzyme, restriction nuclease,
definition	:	any of the enzymes that cut nucleic acid at specific restriction sites and produce restriction fragments; obtained from bacteria (where they cripple viral invaders); used in recombinant DNA technology (noun.substance)