The molecular machines of DNA repair: scanning force microscopy analysis of their architecture

The application of scanning force microscope (SFM, also called atomic force microscope or AFM) imaging to study the architecture of proteins and their functional assemblies on DNA has provided new and exciting information on the mechanism of vital cellular processes. Rapid progress in molecular biology has resulted in the identification and isolation of proteins and protein complexes that function in specific DNA transactions. These proteins and protein complexes can now be analysed at the single molecule level, whereby the functional assemblies are often described as nanomachines. Understanding how they work requires understanding their structure and functional arrangement in three dimensions. The SFM is uniquely suited to provide three-dimensional structural information on biomolecules at nanometre resolution. In this review we focus on recent applications of SFM to reveal detailed information on the architecture and mechanism of action of protein machinery involved in safeguarding genome stability through DNA repair processes.