Figure 3.

MTERF1 in the recognition mode conformation is too unwound to track the major groove of B-DNA. Surfaces were sliced to show incompatibility: the blue clipping plane appears purple where the DNA penetrates the protein. (A) Only minor steric clashes are present in the crystal structure of the recognition complex with unwound DNA. (B) Aligning the C-site P atoms of B-DNA to the corresponding region in the crystal led to large steric clashes between the N-site and the N-terminal domain of MTERF1. Alignment of the N-site resulted in similar clashes in the C-site.