Fig. 2.

Schematic presentation of Rad51-promoted DNA strand-exchange reaction. Reaction steps observed by kinetic analysis (Ito et al., 2018) are shown. Rad51 molecules (green balls) bind to single-stranded DNA (blue line) to form a presynaptic filament. The filament binds a double-stranded DNA (red/orange lines) to form complex C1 and changes the DNA conformation (complex C1) before complete strand exchange. For simplicity, helical shapes of Rad51 filament and double-stranded DNA are not shown. Structures of C1 and C2 complexes are yet unknown.