Perspective
Nature Reviews Genetics 4, 566-572 (July 2003) | doi:10.1038/nrg1115
Timeline: Z-DNA: the long road to biological function
Alexander Rich1 & Shuguang Zhang2 About the authors
Abstract
Biologists were puzzled by the discovery of left-handed Z-DNA because it seemed unnecessary. Z-DNA was stabilized by the negative supercoiling generated by transcription, which indicated a transient localized conformational change. Few laboratories worked on the biology of Z-DNA. However, the discovery that certain classes of proteins bound to Z-DNA with high affinity and great specificity indicated a biological role. The most recent data show that some of these proteins participate in the pathology of poxviruses.
Author affiliations
- Alexander Rich is at the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 68-233, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
- Shuguang Zhang is at the Center for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room NE47-379, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Correspondence to: Shuguang Zhang2 Email: shuguang@mit.edu
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