. 2018 Jan 29;8:1820. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-20157-y

Table 1.

oriT structural properties that enable relaxasome formation and nicking of DNA to initiate transfer of conjugative elements. Shown are experimentally determined oriT structural features and predicted structural properties that were used to interpret them.

Experimental oriT structural features	Reference	Predicted properties
Direct and inverted repeats of DNA sequence around nic that define extensive secondary structures (e.g. hairpins) and act as protein-DNA recognition regions	^44,64	Deformability S_Def
	^44,64	Duplex stability S_Stab
DNA melting bubbles and destabilizations that facilitate relaxase nicking, aided by lower duplex stability around nic and by DNA thermal dynamics	^21,33,65,66	Thermally induced duplex destabilizations S_TIDD
Intrinsically curved or flexible regions that facilitate binding and changes in oriT structure around nic (e.g. IHF protein binding in MOB F)	^44,55,67	Bending propensity S_Bend
	^44,55,67	Persistence length S_Per
Differences in DNA spacing and orientation between binding sites and nic	⁶⁸	Helical repeats S_Hel