Study reveals how protein machinery binds and wraps DNA to start replication
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - 13:00
in Biology & Nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Before any cell - healthy or cancerous - can divide, it has to replicate its DNA. So scientists who want to know how normal cells work - and perhaps how to stop abnormal ones - are keen to understand this process. As a step toward that goal, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have deciphered molecular-level details of the complex choreography by which intricate cellular proteins recognize and bind to DNA to start the replication process. The study is published in the March 7, 2012, issue of the journal Structure.