Supercoiled

G. Ramachandran and T. Schlick. Solvent effects on supercoiled DNA dynamics explored by Langevin dynamics simulations. Phys. Rev. E, 51 6188-6203, 1995. 

G. Ramachandran and T. Schlick. Beyond optimization Simulating the dynamics of supercoiled DNA by a macroscopic model. In P. M. Pardalos, D. Shal-loway, and G. Xue, editors. Global Minimization of Nonconvex Energy Functions Molecular Conformation and Protein Folding, volume 23 of DIM ACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, pages 215-231, Providence, Rhode Island, 1996. American Mathematical Society. 

T. Schlick and W. K. Olson. Trefoil knotting revealed by molecular dynamics simulations of supercoiled DNA. Science, 257 1110-1115, 1992. 

A coiled a helix in a protein IS another example of a supercoil... 

A single helix is a coil a double helix is two nested coils The tertiary structure of DNA in a nucleosome is a coiled coil Coiled coils are referred to as supercoils and are quite common... 

Section 28 9 Within the cell nucleus double helical DNA adopts a supercoiled terti ary structure m which short sections are wound around proteins called histones This reduces the effective length of the DNA and maintains it m an ordered arrangement... 

Dl A. Supercoiling. Supercoiling is a topological property of closed-circular DNA molecules. Circular DNA molecules can exist in various conformations differing in the number of times one strand of the helix crosses the other. These different isomeric conformations are called topoisomers and maybe characterized in terms of the linking number, Ek. A linear DNA molecule having Nbase pairs and h base pairs per turn of the helix, if joined end to end, has the following ... 

Fig. 4. Laboratory tubing model for supercoiling in closed-circular DNA (a) relaxed DNA, ALK = 0 (b) ALK = ATw -...

Electron micrographs of supercoiled DNA m vitro demonstrate that supercoiled molecules have a stmcture intermediate between Figures 4c and 4d, where changes in the linking number are accompanied by approximately a 75% change in Wr and a 25% change in Tw. This conformation is called plectonemic supercoiling. 

The native form of chromatin in cells assumes a higher order stmcture called the 30-nm filament, which adopts a solenoidal stmcture where the 10-nm filament is arranged in a left-handed cod (Fig. 5). The negative supercoiling of the DNA is manifested by writhing the hehcal axis around the nucleosomes. Chromatin stmcture is an example of toroidal winding whereas eukaryotic chromosomes are linear, the chromatin stmctures, attached to a nuclear matrix, define separate closed-circular topological domains. 

Figure 14.1 Each polypeptide chain in the collagen molecule folds into an extended polyproline type II helix with a rise per turn along the helix of 9.6 A comprising 3.3 residues. In the collagen molecule three such chains are supercoiled about a common axis to form a 3000-A-long rod-like molecule. The amino acid sequence contains repeats of -Gly-X-Y- where X is often proline and Y is often hydroxyproline. (a) Ball and stick model of two turns of one polypeptide chain.

FIGURE 28.7 Molecular models of a nucleosome and its components. The nucleosome has a protein core around which is wound a supercoil of duplex DNA. 

FIGURE 11.23 A diagram of the histone octamer. Nucleosomes consist of two turns of DNA supercoiled about a histone core octamer. 

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