Supercoiling News and Research

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Study reveals how DNA gyrase resolves DNA entanglements

Picture in your mind a traditional "landline" telephone with a coiled cord connecting the handset to the phone.

12 Apr 2024

Broken String Biosciences’ INDUCE-seq platform demonstrates impact of structural DNA changes on specificity of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing

Broken String Biosciences today announced that its INDUCE-seq™ DNA break-mapping technology had been used in a peer-reviewed research paper to characterize off-target effects of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing resulting from changes in DNA topology.

From Broken String Biosciences 31 Oct 2023

UVA researchers solve a decades-old mystery about how bacteria can move

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers and their collaborators have solved a decades-old mystery about how E. coli and other bacteria are able to move.

27 Sep 2022

Supercoiling and looping can transmit mechanical stress along the DNA backbone, research shows

When people think of DNA, they visualize a string-like double helix structure. In reality, the DNA double helix in cells is supercoiled and constrained into loops. This supercoiling and looping are known to influence every aspect of DNA activity, but how this happens has not been clear.

28 Sep 2021

Harnessing DNA’s properties to craft “‘topologically tunable” DNA-based materials

While DNA is often idealized as the "molecule of life", it is also a highly sophisticated polymer that can be used for next-generation materials. Beyond the fact that it can store information, further fascinating aspects of DNA are its geometric and topological properties, such as knotting and super-coiling.

31 May 2021

DNA supercoiling is involved in the control of gene expression

The (when stretched) two-meter-long DNA molecule in each human cell is continuously being unpacked and packed again to enable the expression of genetic information.

13 Apr 2021

Critical mechanism allows deadly bacteria to gain resistance to antibiotics

Researchers have identified a critical mechanism that allows deadly bacteria to gain resistance to antibiotics.

9 Mar 2021

DNA sequences encode information in many different ways

DNA sequences encode information in many different ways. Codons specify the amino acids involved in making a protein.

30 Oct 2019

There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work

In recent years, scientists have discovered that biological clocks help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes in the body. Despite a number of hypotheses, exactly how the microscopic pacemakers in every cell in the body exert such a widespread influence has remained a mystery.

21 Nov 2007

Antitumour drugs impede DNA uncoiling by topoisomerase I

The annoying bulges of an overwound telephone cord that shorten its reach and limit a caller's motion help explain why drugs called camptothecins are so effective in killing cancer cells, according to investigators led by Mary-Ann Bjornsti, Ph.D., at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Nynke Dekker, Ph.D., at Delft Technology University.

22 Aug 2007

Magnetic nano tweezers show how cancer drug works

The annoying bulges of an over-wound telephone cord that shorten its reach and limit a caller's motion help to explain why drugs called camptothecins are so effective in killing cancer cells, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Delft University of Technology.

10 Jul 2007

Proteins transform DNA into molecular velcro

Proteins critical for compacting DNA in preparation for cell division actually interact with the double helix to fashion it into a kind of “molecular Velcro,” researchers have discovered.

5 Jun 2004