A guanine-flipping and sequestration mechanism for G-quadruplex unwinding by RecQ helicases

Andrew F. Voter, Yupeng Qiu, Ramreddy Tippana, Sua Myong and James L. Keck ()
Additional contact information
Andrew F. Voter: University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Yupeng Qiu: Johns Hopkins University
Ramreddy Tippana: Johns Hopkins University
Sua Myong: Johns Hopkins University
James L. Keck: University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Homeostatic regulation of G-quadruplexes (G4s), four-stranded structures that can form in guanine-rich nucleic acids, requires G4 unwinding helicases. The mechanisms that mediate G4 unwinding remain unknown. We report the structure of a bacterial RecQ DNA helicase bound to resolved G4 DNA. Unexpectedly, a guanine base from the unwound G4 is sequestered within a guanine-specific binding pocket. Disruption of the pocket in RecQ blocks G4 unwinding, but not G4 binding or duplex DNA unwinding, indicating its essential role in structure-specific G4 resolution. A novel guanine-flipping and sequestration model that may be applicable to other G4-resolving helicases emerges from these studies.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06751-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06751-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06751-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().