Current research in Virology & Retrovirology

Streptomyces is the largest genus of Actinobacteria and the type genus of the family Streptomycetaceae. Streptomyces is a gram positive. Found mostly in soil and decaying vegetation. They produce two –thirds of the clinically useful antibiotics of natural origin. Scholarly peer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in a journal. The work may be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given (narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review. Streptomyces nucleases are widely distributed and multifunctional enzymes acting on both DNA and RNA. They occur extra as well as intracellularly and can be classified under sugar specific and sugar non-specific nucleases. Nucleases play different roles like analytical, biological, and nutritional. They are also used in programmed cell death. Although more than 20 nucleases are reported to date, very little information is available regarding their structure-function relationship, active site based sequence homology, and the probable mechanism of action. This review describes the history, occurrence, localization, production, purification, properties, and applications of Streptomyces nucleases.