Journal
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
Volume 44, Issue 5, Pages 2266-2273Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkw035
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Broad/MIT
- Burroughs Wellcome Foundation
- MIT
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Recent work revealed a new class of molecular machines called molecular sleds, which are small basic molecules that bind and slide along DNA with the ability to carry cargo along DNA. Here, we performed biochemical and single-molecule flow stretching assays to investigate the basis of sliding activity in molecular sleds. In particular, we identified the functional core of pVIc, the first molecular sled characterized; peptide functional groups that control sliding activity; and propose a model for the sliding activity of molecular sleds. We also observed widespread DNA binding and sliding activity among basic polypeptide sequences that implicate mammalian nuclear localization sequences and many cell penetrating peptides as molecular sleds. These basic protein motifs exhibit weak but physiologically relevant sequence-nonspecific DNA affinity. Our findings indicate that many mammalian proteins contain molecular sled sequences and suggest the possibility that substantial undiscovered sliding activity exists among nuclear mammalian proteins.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available