Mechanisms used by phages to resist the action of restriction endonucleases.
This is other than the infrequent epigenetic modifications of the phage DNA such that it is recognized, essentially, as bacterial self DNA rather than as foreign DNA and also is other than having genomes that do not possess restriction enzyme recognition sequences, though that also serves phages as a means of avoiding restriction by restriction endonucleases.
Antirestriction is mediated by phage gene products that act either during the synthesis step of infections, thereby effecting antirestriction during the following infection (particularly by modifying phage DNA), or involve processes by which restriction endonucleases are more actively thwarted during the infection process prior to nucleic acid replication and virion assembly.
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