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  4. Generation of supercoils in nicked and gapped DNA drives DNA unknotting and postreplicative decatenation
 
research article

Generation of supercoils in nicked and gapped DNA drives DNA unknotting and postreplicative decatenation

Racko, Dusan
•
Benedetti, Fabrizio
•
Dorier, Julien
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2015
Nucleic Acids Research

Due to the helical structure of DNA the process of DNA replication is topologically complex. Freshly replicated DNA molecules are catenated with each other and are frequently knotted. For proper functioning of DNA it is necessary to remove all of these entanglements. This is done by DNA topoisomerases that pass DNA segments through each other. However, it has been a riddle how DNA topoisomerases select the sites of their action. In highly crowded DNA in living cells random passages between contacting segments would only increase the extent of entanglement. Using molecular dynamics simulations we observed that in actively supercoiled DNA molecules the entanglements resulting from DNA knotting or catenation spontaneously approach sites of nicks and gaps in the DNA. Type I topoisomerases, that preferentially act at sites of nick and gaps, are thus naturally provided with DNA-DNA juxtapositions where a passage results in an error-free DNA unknotting or DNA decatenation.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1093/nar/gkv683
Web of Science ID

WOS:000361303300012

Author(s)
Racko, Dusan
Benedetti, Fabrizio
Dorier, Julien
Burnier, Yannis  
Stasiak, Andrzej
Date Issued

2015

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published in
Nucleic Acids Research
Volume

43

Issue

15

Start page

7229

End page

7236

Note

National Licences

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

OTHER

EPFL units
ITP  
Available on Infoscience
December 2, 2015
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/121260
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