Heparinase II cleaves heparan sulfate, and to a lesser extent heparin (relative activity about 2:1), at the α (1-4) linkages between hexosamines and uronic acid residues (both glucuronic and iduronic), yielding mainly disaccharides. Heparinase II has the broadest substrate specificity of the three heparinases Heparinase enzymes helps in decoding the complex structures of substrates. Heparin interferes with DNA transcription in PCR and in reverse transcription of RNA. Heparinase II has been used to remove heparin for downstream analysis of genomic DNA.
