Close relationship between the HinfI and DpnA DNA-methyltransferase

The amino acid sequences of some thirty different DNA methyltransferases (Mtases) have been established during the last several years. Their comparison revealed a close relationship among all the cytosine (5C) specific enzymes. In contrast high divergence is found between the adenine specific Mtases. Only the five Mtases dam, damT4, DpnII, EcoRV and damT2 proved to be closely related. The papers shows, that the sequence of the GANTC recognizing HinfI Mtase, which was recently published, does not only exhibit some identities to the isomethylomeric enzyme HhaII, but to a much larger extent similarities to the GATC methylating enzyme DpnA.