Flexible "Slinkies" Form in DNA of Archaea
Summary New cryo-electron microscopy images suggest archaeal microbes pack their chromatin into tight coils that can spring open, forming unexpected contortions. Archaeal DNA forms coils that can flop apart in solution, new cryo-electron microscopy experiments reveal. Credit: S. Bowerman et al./ eLife 2021 In some single-celled organisms, DNA coils like a spring and opens like a book. eLife. “Very much to our surprise, we found that these structures can undergo all sorts of gymnastics,” says Luger, a biochemist at the University of Colorado Boulder. Like DNA in the nucleus of human cells...
Source: hhmi.org