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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Nov 15.
Published in final edited form as: Brief Funct Genomics. 2017 Apr 24;16(6):379–389. doi: 10.1093/bfgp/elx007

Figure 1.

Figure 1

DNA supercoiling results in an over- or under-winding of the double helix. Representation of over-wound DNA ahead of and under-wound DNA behind the transcribing RNA polymerase complex. The green nucleosome indicates the movement of DNA through the RNA polymerase complex. The large complex size prevents rotation with the turn of the DNA helix and therefore generates supercoils via the twin-domain model. Over-wound DNA ahead of the polymerase complex destabilizes nucleosomes immediately ahead of the transcription machinery. (A colour version of this figure is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/bfg)