Single-Molecule Views of Protein Movement on Single-Stranded DNA

The advent of new technologies allowing the study of single biological molecules continues to have a major impact on studies of interacting systems as well as enzyme reactions. These approaches (fluorescence, optical, and magnetic tweezers), in combination with ensemble methods, have been particular...

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Veröffentlicht in:Annual review of biophysics 2012-06, Vol.41 (1), p.295-319
Hauptverfasser: Ha, Taekjip, Kozlov, Alexander G, Lohman, Timothy M
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The advent of new technologies allowing the study of single biological molecules continues to have a major impact on studies of interacting systems as well as enzyme reactions. These approaches (fluorescence, optical, and magnetic tweezers), in combination with ensemble methods, have been particularly useful for mechanistic studies of protein-nucleic acid interactions and enzymes that function on nucleic acids. We review progress in the use of single-molecule methods to observe and perturb the activities of proteins and enzymes that function on flexible single-stranded DNA. These include single-stranded DNA binding proteins, recombinases (RecA Rad51), and helicases translocases that operate as motor proteins and play central roles in genome maintenance. We emphasize methods that have been used to detect and study the movement of these proteins (both ATP-dependent directional and random movement) along the single-stranded DNA and the mechanistic and functional information that can result from detailed analysis of such movement.
ISSN:1936-122X
1936-1238
DOI:10.1146/annurev-biophys-042910-155351