Preface/Front Matter

Abstract

In August 1981, the first meeting devoted to the subject of nucleases was held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. A number of the speakers at that meeting had been cajoled into writing a chapter on their area of expertise. The idea was to produce a book that would provide a comprehensive account of this subject area. The result was the first edition of the book, Nucleases. A paperback edition, which contained a series of small addenda to some of the chapters, was produced in 1985. The seeds for this present edition were sown over the last few years as various individuals suggested updates and expansions of the book. The culmination was a second meeting on the subject of nucleases, which was held in February 1993 in Tamarron, Colorado, as a Keystone Symposium. Once again, potential authors were invited to the meeting and chapters were later written. The result is a complete re-write of the old book, although some of the authors are the same.

The nuclease field has witnessed a great deal of progress since the Cold Spring Harbor meeting in 1981, and this is reflected in new chapters describing synthetic nucleases, homing endonucleases, and ribozymes. Indeed, even the definition of a “nuclease” has elicited debate. Most dramatic has been the appearance of crystal structures for many nucleases, which have led to a deeper understanding of structure and function of various enzymes. Mechanistic studies have progressed apace and common themes are emerging as discussed in Chapter 1.

There are several