Nucleases are considered as molecular scissors, which catalyze the hydrolysis of phosphodiester bonds between the sugars and the phosphate moieties of nucleic acids. They play important role in DNA proofreading during replication, base, nucleotide, mismatch, and double-strand repairs, homologous recombination, and turnover. Depending on the selectivity for certain types of nucleic acid substrates can be classified into Deoxyribonucleases and Ribonucleases. (Adapted from
PMID:20854710 and
PMID:12483517).