Figure 2. Schematics of the potential mechanisms of RAG nicking and hairpin formation.
The RAG catalytic complex can carry out nicking and hairpin formation in at least eight mechanistically distinguishable ways. Reaction schemes 1 to 4 are shown here. For other reaction schemes please see Figure 3. Catalytic rate constants are shown next to the corresponding reaction arrows by lowercase letters with subscripts. See text for details. R, RAG enzymatic complex; 12, 12RSS; 23, 23RSS; R:12, RAG bound to 12RSS; R:23, RAG bound to 23RSS; N, nicked; H, hairpin.