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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Direct Observation of Enzymes Replicating DNA Using a Single-molecule DNA Stretching Assay
Published on: March 23, 2010
Honey, I shrunk the DNA: DNA length as a probe for nucleic-acid enzyme activity
1Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Abstract:
The replication, recombination, and repair of DNA are processes essential for the maintenance of genomic information and require the activity of numerous enzymes that catalyze the polymerization or digestion of DNA. This review will discuss how differences in elastic properties between single- and double-stranded DNA can be used as a probe to study the dynamics of these enzymes at the single-molecule level.
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