title: The structure of supercoiled intermediates in DNA replication.
abstract: We studied the structure of replication intermediates accumulated by Tus-induced arrest of plasmid DNA replication at termination sites. For intermediates generated both in vitro with purified components and in vivo, superhelical stress is distributed throughout the entire partially replicated molecule; daughter DNA segments are wound around each other, and the unreplicated region is supercoiled. Thus, unlinking of parental DNA strands by topoisomerases can be carried out both behind and in front of the replication fork. We explain why previous studies with prokaryotic and eukaryotic replication intermediates discerned only supercoiling in the unreplicated portion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Peter
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ullsperger
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hiasa
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Marians
authors.forename: N R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Cozzarelli
mesh_terms: D004261:DNA Replication / Q000235:genetics*; D004278:DNA, Superhelical / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel; D004926:Escherichia coli; D007536:Isomerism; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010957:Plasmids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure
chemical_list: D004278:DNA, Superhelical