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Updated: Mar 3, 2026
High-Speed Magnetic Tweezers for Nanomechanical Measurements on Force-Sensitive Elements
Published on: May 12, 2023
A mechanistic study of helicases with magnetic traps
Samar Hodeib1,2, Saurabh Raj1,2, Maria Manosas3,4
1Laboratoire de physique statistique, Département de physique de l'ENS, École normale supérieure, PSL Research University, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, CNRS, 75005, Paris, France.
Abstract:
Helicases are a broad family of enzymes that separate nucleic acid double strand structures (DNA/DNA, DNA/RNA, or RNA/RNA) and thus are essential to DNA replication and the maintenance of nucleic acid integrity. We review the picture that has emerged from single molecule studies of the mechanisms of DNA and RNA helicases and their interactions with other proteins. Many features have been uncovered by these studies that were obscured by bulk studies, such as DNA strands switching, mechanical (rather than biochemical) coupling between helicases and polymerases, helicase-induced re-hybridization and stalled fork rescue.
