Multiple RPAs make WRN syndrome protein a superhelicase

Abstract RPA is known to stimulate the helicase activity of Werner syndrome protein (WRN), but the exact stimulation mechanism is not understood. We use single-molecule FRET and magnetic tweezers to investigate the helicase activity of WRN and its stimulation by RPA. We show that WRN alone is a weak helicase which repetitively unwind just a few tens of base pairs, but that binding of multiple RPAs to the enzyme converts WRN into a superhelicase that unidirectionally unwinds double-stranded DNA more than 1 kb. Our study provides a good case in which the activity and biological functions of the enzyme may be fundamentally altered by the binding of cofactors.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Nucleic Acids Research

• Publication date

  2018-04-14

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1093/nar/gky272PMID 29668972PMCID 5961295
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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