The BAL 31 Nucleases (EC 3.1.11)

The extracellular nucleases commonly called the BAL 31 nuclease take their name from the designation given the marine bacterium producing them, which was originally classified as Pseudomonas BAL 31 (1 ) and reclassified as belonging to the small genus Alteromonas (2 ) with the species named espejiana after its discoverer, a Chilean microbiologist. The nuclease activities were originally found as contaminants in preparations of bacteriophage PM2 grown on this organism, but were shown (3 ,4 ) to be bacterial products. Only 10–20% of the nuclease activity is found in the periplasm (5 ). The American Type Culture Collection strain of Alteromonas espejiana (ATCC 29659) produces BAL 31 nuclease as proficiently as the strain originally obtained from its discoverer.