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Untangling intracellular DNA topology
Author(s) -
Espeli Olivier,
Marians Kenneth J.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
molecular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 247
eISSN - 1365-2958
pISSN - 0950-382X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2004.04047.x
Subject(s) - biology , intracellular , dna , topology (electrical circuits) , computational biology , evolutionary biology , genetics , mathematics , combinatorics
Summary The biochemical steps by which bacterial topoisomerases alter the topology of DNA are well known. However, it has been a more vexing task to establish physiological roles and sites of action of the different topoisomerases within the context of the bacterial cell cycle. This difficulty can be attributed in part to the redundancy among the activities of the different enzymes. In this microreview, we will focus on recent progress in understanding the topological structure of the chromosome, analysis of topoisomerase mechanism in single‐molecule assays and recent data on the regulation and integration of topoisomerase activity within the cell cycle that have all brought a new perspective to the action of topoisomerases in the bacterial cell.