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The mechano-chemistry of a monomeric reverse transcriptase
Retroviral reverse transcriptase catalyses the synthesis of an integration-competent dsDNA molecule, using as a substrate the viral RNA. Using optical tweezers, we follow the Murine Leukemia Virus reverse transcriptase as it performs strand-displacement polymerization on a template under mechanical...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5728418/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29165701 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx1168 |
Sumario: | Retroviral reverse transcriptase catalyses the synthesis of an integration-competent dsDNA molecule, using as a substrate the viral RNA. Using optical tweezers, we follow the Murine Leukemia Virus reverse transcriptase as it performs strand-displacement polymerization on a template under mechanical force. Our results indicate that reverse transcriptase functions as a Brownian ratchet, with dNTP binding as the rectifying reaction of the ratchet. We also found that reverse transcriptase is a relatively passive enzyme, able to polymerize on structured templates by exploiting their thermal breathing. Finally, our results indicate that the enzyme enters the recently characterized backtracking state from the pre-translocation complex. |
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