Interplay of protein and DNA structure revealed in simulations of the lac operon.

ABSTRACT: The E. coli Lac repressor is the classic textbook example of a protein that attaches to widely spaced sites along a genome and forces the intervening DNA into a loop. The short loops implicated in the regulation of the lac operon suggest the involvement of factors other than DNA and repressor in gene control. The molecular simulations presented here examine two likely structural contributions to the in-vivo looping of bacterial DNA: the distortions of the double helix introduced upon association of the highly abundant, nonspecific nucleoid protein HU and the large-scale deformations of the repressor detected in low-resolution experiments. The computations take account of the three-dimensional arrangements of nucleotides and amino acids found in crystal structures of DNA with the two protei

SUBMITTER: Czapla L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3572996 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature