ArdB proteins are known to inhibit the activity of the type I restriction-modification (RM-I) system, in particular EcoKI (IA family). The mechanism of ArdB's activity still remains unknown; the spectrum of targets inhibited has been poorly studied. In this work, it was shown that the presence of the ardB gene from the R64 plasmid could suppress the activity of EcoAI endonuclease (IB family) in Escherichia coli TG1 cells. Due to the absence of specificity of ArdB to a certain RM-I system (it inhibits both the IA- and IB-family), it can be assumed that the mechanism of the anti-restriction activity of this protein does not depend on the sequence DNA at the recognition site nor the structure of the restriction enzyme of the RM-I systems.
