What’s new

By creating a more true-to-life representation of DNA’s environment, researchers at Northwestern University have discovered that strand separation — the essential process a “resting” double helix undergoes before it can initiate replication or make repairs — may take more mechanical force than the field previously believed.

The background

Most biochemistry labs that study DNA isolate it within a water-based solution that allows scientists to manipulate DNA without interacting with other molecules. They also tend to use heat to separate strands, heating the DNA to over 150 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature a cell would never naturally reach. By contrast, in a living cell DNA lives in a very crowded environment, and special proteins attach to DNA to mechanically unwind the double helix and then pry it apart.