The superhelicity of the chromosome, which is controlled by DNA topoisomerases, modulates global gene expression. Investigations of transcriptional responses to the modulation of gyrase function have identified two types of topoisomerase-mediated transcriptional responses: (i) steady-state changes elicited by a mutation in gyrase, such as the D82G mutation in GyrA, and (ii) dynamic changes elic...

The multiresistance plasmid pJHCMW1, first identified in a Klebsiella pneumoniae strain isolated from a neonate with meningitis, includes a Xer recombination site, mwr, with unique characteristics. Efficiency of resolution of mwr-containing plasmid dimers is strongly dependent on the osmotic pressure of the growth medium. An increase in supercoiling density of plasmid DNA was observed as the os...

We study the elastic behaviour of a supercoiled DNA molecule. The simplest model is that of a rod like chain, involving two elastic constants, the bending and the twist rigidities. Writing this model in terms of Euler angles, we show that the corresponding Hamiltonian is singular and needs a small distance cutoff, which is a natural length scale giving the limit of validity of the model, of the...

OBJECTIVES This study was aimed at characterizing the gyrA locus and determining its impact on fluoroquinolone susceptibility, DNA supercoiling degree and growth rate of Salmonella Typhimurium live vaccine strain vacT in comparison with its parent M415. Furthermore, the role of multiple drug resistance efflux in the susceptibility of vacT to fluoroquinolones and macrolides was investigated. M...

Guanine-rich DNAs can fold into four-stranded structures that contain stacks of G-quartets. Bioinformatics studies have revealed that G-rich sequences with the potential to adopt these structures are unevenly distributed throughout genomes, and are especially found in gene promoter regions. With the exception of the single-stranded telomeric DNA, all genomic G-rich sequences will always be pres...

To address the role of transient torsional stress in transcription, we have utilized the regulated expression of HO endonuclease in yeast to create double-strand breaks in DNA templates in vivo at preselected sites. Linearization of circular minichromosomes, either 2 kb upstream or immediately downstream of a lacZ reporter gene controlled by the yeast metallothionein gene (CUP1) promoter, did n...

While slowly turning the ends of a single molecule of DNA at constant applied force, a discontinuity was recently observed at the supercoiling transition when a small plectoneme is suddenly formed. This can be understood as an abrupt transition into a state in which stretched and plectonemic DNA coexist. We argue that there should be discontinuities in both the extension and the torque at the t...

Gyrase is a molecular motor that harnesses the free energy of ATP hydrolysis to perform mechanical work on DNA. The enzyme specifically introduces negative supercoiling in a process that must coordinate fuel consumption with DNA cleavage and religation and with numerous conformational changes in both the protein and DNA components of a large nucleoprotein complex. Here we present a current unde...

Regulation of cellular growth implies spatiotemporally coordinated programmes of gene transcription. A central question, therefore, is how global transcription is coordinated in the genome. The growth of the unicellular organism Escherichia coli is associated with changes in both the global superhelicity modulated by cellular topoisomerase activity and the relative proportions of the abundant D...