Single DNA conformations and biological function

Authors

Ralf Metzler
Tobias Ambjoernsson
Andreas Hanke
Yongli Zhang
Stephen Levene

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Abstract

From a nanoscience perspective, cellular processes and their reduced in vitro imitations provide extraordinary examples for highly robust few or single molecule reaction pathways. A prime example are biochemical reactions involving DNA molecules, and the coupling of these reactions to the physical conformations of DNA. In this review, we summarise recent results on the following phenomena: We investigate the biophysical properties of DNA-looping and the equilibrium configurations of DNA-knots, whose relevance to biological processes are increasingly appreciated. We discuss how random DNA-looping may be related to the efficiency of the target search process of proteins for their specific binding site on the DNA molecule. And we dwell on the spontaneous formation of intermittent DNA nanobubbles and their importance for biological processes, such as transcription initiation. The physical properties of DNA may indeed turn out to be particularly suitable for the use of DNA in nanosensing applications. Copyright © 2007 American Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.

Comments

© Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience. Original version available at: http://doi.org/

Recommended Citation

Ralf Metzler, et. al., (2007) Single DNA conformations and biological function.Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience4:11. DOI: http://doi.org/

First Page

1

Last Page

49

Publication Title

Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience