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Analysis of the mechanism of DNA recombination using tangles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2009

De Witt Sumners ,
Claus Ernst ,
Sylvia J. Spengler  and
Nicholas R. Cozzarelli
De Witt Sumners
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Florida State University, Tallahassee FLUSA Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley CAUSA
Claus Ernst
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green KYUSA
Sylvia J. Spengler
Affiliation:
Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley CAUSA
Nicholas R. Cozzarelli
Affiliation:
Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley CAUSA Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley CAUSA
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Extract

The DNA of all organisms has a complex and essential topology. The three topological properties of naturally occurring DNA are supercoiling, catenation, and knotting. Although these properties are denned rigorously only for closed circular DNA, even linear DNA in vivo can have topological properties because it is divided into topologically separate subdomains (Drlica 1987; Roberge & Gasser, 1992). The essentiality of topological properties is demonstrated by the lethal consequence of interfering with topoisomerases, the enzymes that regulate the level of DNA supercoiling and that unlink DNA during its replication (reviewed in Wang, 1991; Bjornsti, 1991; Drlica, 1992; Ullsperger et al. 1995).

Type
Research Article
Information
Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , August 1995 , pp. 253 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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