Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Simple and Fast Rolling Circle Amplification-Based Detection of Topoisomerase 1 Activity in Crude Biological Samples
Published on: December 2, 2022
Role of flexibility and long range communication on the function of human topoisomerase I
Giovanni Chillemi1, Paola Fiorani, Alessandro Bruselles
1CASPUR Interuniversities Consortium for Supercomputing Applications, Rome, Italy.
Abstract:
Eukaryotic topoisomerase I is an essential enzyme that regulates the changes in DNA topology, relaxing the superhelical tension associated with DNA replication, transcription and recombination. Human topoisomerase I is of significant medical interest being the only target of the antitumor drug camptothecin. The enzyme undergoes large conformational changes during its catalytic cycle and the knowedge of the degree of flexibility of the different regions provides an useful guide to the understanding of such movements. Molecular dynamics simulation is a well consolidated method for the investigation of structural and dynamic properties of proteins and nucleic acids and has been successfully applied to study the dynamical properties of the DNA-human topoisomerase complex. This review highlights some structural and dynamic properties of topoisomerase, obtained by MD simulations, that permits to explain the importance of flexibility in the modulation of the functional properties of the enzyme and in the transmission of communication between domains located far away one from each other.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
DNA Topoisomerases
Types and Mechanism of action
Topoisomerases are divided into two main types. Type I...
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Translesion DNA Polymerases
TLS polymerases are found in all three domains of life - archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. Of the different classes of TLS polymerases, members of the Y family are fitted with specialized structures that...
DNA Helicases
Nucleosome Remodeling
Nucleosome remodeling complex
Eukaryotic cells have specialized enzymes called ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling enzymes. These enzymes...
Homologous Recombination

