Michelle Wang, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Host: Biophysics Students

Torsional Consequences of DNA Motor Proteins

Fundamental biological processes require the concurrent occupation of DNA by numerous motor proteins and complexes. Thus, collisions, congestion, and roadblocks are inescapable on these busy ‘molecular highways’. The consequences of these traffic problems are diverse, requiring complex cellular mechanisms to resolve threats to genome stability and ensure cellular viability. Additionally, the molecular highways are continuously and dynamically restructured during these processes, altering highway topology and ‘traffic’ flow. 

These alterations of DNA topology generate torsion, which can be present genome‐wide and significantly facilitate or inhibit gene expression. Historically, quantitative studies of torsion have been technically challenging, and our lab has developed real-time, single molecule techniques to decipher the actions of multiple players while also simultaneously allowing the ability to mechanically control, alter, and measure DNA topology. These single molecule precision measurements have enabled novel insights into the complex coordination of cellular machineries and the fundamental role of DNA mechanics and topology.