The nuclease-related domain (NERD) is found in a range of bacterial as well as archaeal and plant proteins. It has distant similarity to endonucleases (hence its name) and its predicted secondary structure is helix - sheet - sheet - sheet - sheet - weak sheet/long loop - helix - sheet - sheet. The majority of NERD-containing proteins are single-domain, but in several cases proteins containing NERD have additional domains which in 75% of cases are involved in DNA processing [1].

1: NERD: a DNA processing-related domain present in the anthrax virulence plasmid, pXO1. Grynberg M, Godzik A; Trends Biochem Sci 2004;29:106-110. PMID:15055202