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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Crit Rev Biochem Mol Biol. 2019 Oct 1;54(4):352–370. doi: 10.1080/10409238.2019.1670130

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Positively supercoiled DNA is more resistant to extension then negatively supercoiled DNA.

A) A depiction of a single molecule experiment with magnetic tweezers. Negatively supercoiled DNA is pulled with 1 pN of force and is extended. Upon extension local regions of the DNA melt/denature. B) Positively supercoiled DNA is pulled with 1 pN of force but resists extension. C) Positively supercoiled DNA is pulled with greater than 3 pN of force and is extended. Upon extension the DNA is reorganized into Pauling DNA (P-DNA).