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Under DNA stress, gyrase makes the sign of the cross

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 14, pages 256–258 (2007)Cite this article

In this issue, Nöllmann and colleagues report single-molecule analyses of DNA gyrase action on supercoiled DNA under different levels of strain. Surprisingly, they found that gyrase changes its reaction mechanism in response to changes in DNA strain. This explains the role of ATP in a branching topoisomerase reaction pathway and revisits an old puzzle about gyrase reversibility.

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Figure 1: Gyrase reaction mechanism for producing and removing (−) supercoils.
Figure 2: Magnetic tweezers and rotating magnets create single-molecule substrates for DNA gyrase.
Figure 3: Pathways for relaxing (+) supercoils at low force (left) and at high force (right).

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Acknowledgements

I thank M. Pato for critical reading of this manuscript. Work in the Higgins Laboratory is supported by US National Science Foundation grant MCB9122048 and US National Institutes of Health grant GM33143.

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  1. N. Patrick Higgins is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0024, USA. nphiggin@uab.edu,

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Higgins, N. Under DNA stress, gyrase makes the sign of the cross. Nat Struct Mol Biol 14, 256–258 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb0407-256

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