Abstract
Forces in biological systems are typically investigated at the single-molecule level with atomic force microscopy or optical and magnetic tweezers, but these techniques suffer from limited data throughput and their requirement for a physical connection to the macroscopic world. We introduce a self-assembled nanoscopic force clamp built from DNA that operates autonomously and allows massive parallelization. Single-stranded DNA sections of an origami structure acted as entropic springs and exerted controlled tension in the low piconewton range on a molecular system, whose conformational transitions were monitored by single-molecule Frster resonance energy transfer. We used the conformer switching of a Holliday junction as a benchmark and studied the TATA-binding protein-induced bending of a DNA duplex under tension. The observed suppression of bending above 10 piconewtons provides further evidence of mechanosensitivity in gene regulation.
| Item Type: | Journal article |
|---|---|
| Faculties: | Physics |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 530 Physics |
| ISSN: | 0036-8075 |
| Language: | English |
| Item ID: | 47478 |
| Date Deposited: | 27. Apr 2018, 08:13 |
| Last Modified: | 08. May 2024, 09:23 |
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