What about DNA knotting? A biological mechanism

What about DNA knotting? A biological mechanism

May 09, 2018 Source: Science and Technology Daily

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This discovery can improve the accuracy of gene sequencing technology

According to recent information from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) official website, MIT scientists first discovered that a biological mechanism can control the kinking of DNA molecules, which proves that the kink on the same DNA molecule can change from static to mobile. This achievement will improve the accuracy of gene sequencing technology.

As a classical long-chain molecule, DNA has the same self-contained "characteristics" as all long and thin objects in nature. This DNA kink is also present in living cells, but cells also carry specific topoisases that "unravel" the knot. The MIT team has proposed a new method to untie the kinks of extracellular DNA.

The research leader, MIT chemist Patrick Doyle and his team have long been devoted to the physics of polymer kink. DNA is easier to observe under the microscope, and its characteristics make it easy to knot, so it has become an important research object. This time, with the help of special DNA molecular stretching techniques and imaging observations of DNA kinks, the team first discovered a biological mechanism that determines the movement or quiescence of DNA kinks in the nucleic acid strand.

Patrick Doyle said that polymer physicists have speculated that these kinks can be fixed, but there is no good model system to verify this. This time, they proved that the kinks on the same DNA molecule can change from static to mobile. Once the environment is changed, the kinks stop. Similarly, the static kinks can be reactivated.

This discovery provides the hope to understand the kinking of DNA, not only to help researchers improve the accuracy of gene sequencing technology, but also to promote the formation of DNA kink, slow down the speed of DNA molecules through the sequencing system, thereby improving the ability of sequencing technology. .

Dmitry Makarov, a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that the experiment proved for the first time that DNA kink is like a knot in everyday life and can be fixed under tension. At the same time, the experiment provided an important inspiration for studying the friction at the molecular level, and people have not been sufficiently aware of the phenomenon. (Reporter Zhang Mengran)

Editor-in-chief

Life is tangled. Biologists have long known that, like all chains, DNA can become entangled in intractable flaws. But only the chemists who specialize in it can clarify the shape and movement of this minimum knot and help us better observe the DNA. This once again proves the inextricable relationship between chemistry and biology.

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