Abstract
The double-helical structure of DNA rapidly adapts to changes in the molecule’s degree of supercoiling. The overwound or underwound double-helical axis can assume exotic forms such as plectonemes (the braided forms that appear on twisted phone cords) [1], and supercoiling-induced denaturation of certain DNA sequences can allow the formation of stem-loop structures or cruciforms [2]. In the thirty-odd years since DNA supercoiling was discovered [3], it has been shown that supercoiling is involved in or affected by biological processes such as DNA transcription [4, 5], DNA recombination [6], DNA replication [7] and the packaging of eukaryotic genomes [8]. Until today, it was only possible to control the supercoiling of circular plasmid DNAs using intercalators (such as ethidium bromide) or commercially available topoisomerases. These techniques have several disadvantages; they do not allow for real-time modification and analysis of DNA supercoiling, nor do they allow for precise, controllable and reversible DNA supercoiling. We have established a new technique based on the tools of DNA micromanipulation which gives us the possibility of executing precise, quantitative and reversible supercoiling of an individual linear DNA molecule in real time [9]. Here we will describe our experimental setup and the properties of supercoiled DNA, and then present preliminary experiments concerning the supercoiling-assisted hybridization of homologous DNA sequences and its possible implications for genetic recombination.
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© 1998 Springer-Verlag France
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Strick, T.R., Allemand, JF., Bensimon, A., Bensimon, D., Croquette, V. (1998). Structures of Supercoiled DNA and their Biological Implications. In: Beysens, D.A., Forgacs, G. (eds) Dynamical Networks in Physics and Biology. Centre de Physique des Houches, vol 10. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03524-5_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03524-5_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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