As per enzyme nomenclatures roman numerals I, II, III and so on are given based on the sequence of discovery of RE. So why is it said that Hind II is the first restriction enzyme and not Hind I?
The nomenclature for restriction enzymes was proposed by Smith in a 1973 paper:
Article A Suggested Nomenclature for Bacterial Host Modification and...
In that paper he describes various nming rules including that of using Roman numerals:
"When a particular host strain has several different R-M systems, these are identified by Roman numerals, thus, the R-M systems from H. influenzae strain d would be HindI, HindII, HindIII, etc. "
And he names "his" enzyme HindII and allocate the name HindI to an enzyme partially described by Glover in 1972:
Article Host specificity of DNA in : Restriction and modification in strain R
A paper that is predates by 1 year the paper of Smith describing what became HindII.
So I guess he wanted to be nice to everyone involved in the process of discovering these enzymes and therefore used the "I" for the enzyme first described in the literature even so that the characterization of this enzyme was incomplete.
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