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. 1985 Apr;4(4):1025–1032. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1985.tb03734.x

Negative supercoiling induces spontaneous unwinding of a bacterial promoter.

H R Drew, J R Weeks, A A Travers
PMCID: PMC554295  PMID: 2990904

Abstract

We have examined the influence of negative supercoiling on the DNA structure of a bacterial promoter (tyrT from Escherichia coli), the transcriptional activity of which is strongly enhanced by torsional stress in vitro. Certain regions of this promoter become sensitive to digestion by single-strand-specific S1 nuclease as a consequence of negative superhelicity. These regions occur with high frequency (1 per 30-50 bp) and are normally centered on a TpA doublet. The major positions of cleavage are located in and around the -10 sequence TATGATG, the unwinding of which is a prerequisite for gene expression. An apparently trivial change in the -10 sequence from TATGATG to TATGAAG reduces both transcriptional activity and S1 nuclease sensitivity at least 10-fold. Thus the nuclease sensitivity of the promoter correlates strongly with its biological function; and both of these phenomena correlate with certain sequence-dependent structural properties of the DNA.

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Selected References

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