title: Modular magnetic tweezers for single-molecule characterizations of helicases.
abstract: Magnetic tweezers provide a versatile toolkit supporting the mechanistic investigation of helicases. In the present article, we show that custom magnetic tweezers setups are straightforward to construct and can easily be extended to provide adaptable platforms, capable of addressing a multitude of enquiries regarding the functions of these fascinating molecular machines. We first address the fundamental components of a basic magnetic tweezers scheme and review some previous results to demonstrate the versatility of this instrument. We then elaborate on several extensions to the basic magnetic tweezers scheme, and demonstrate their applications with data from ongoing research. As our methodological overview illustrates, magnetic tweezers are an extremely useful tool for the characterization of helicases and a custom built instrument can be specifically tailored to suit the experimenter's needs.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biophysics Group, Institute of Experimental Physics I, Universität Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Felix E
authors.initials: FE
authors.lastname: Kemmerich
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biophysics Group, Institute of Experimental Physics I, Universität Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kasaciunaite
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biophysics Group, Institute of Experimental Physics I, Universität Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: ralf.seidel@physik.uni-leipzig.de.
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Seidel
mesh_terms: D004265:DNA Helicases / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D008280:Magnetics; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D052898:Optical Tweezers
chemical_list: D004265:DNA Helicases
keywords: DNA unwinding; Helicase; Magnetic tweezers; Single-molecule