Origins of DNA folding suggested in archaea

[jpak]

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-dna-archaea.html

In the cells of palm trees, humans, and some single-celled microorganisms, DNA gets bent the same way. Now, by studying the 3-D structure of proteins bound to DNA in microbes called Archaea, University of Colorado Boulder and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have turned up surprising similarities to DNA packing in more complicated organisms.

"If you look at the nitty gritty, it's identical," said Karolin Luger, a professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder and an HHMI Investigator. "It just blows my mind."

The archaeal DNA folding, described today in the journal Science, hints at the evolutionary origins of genome folding, a process that involves bending DNA and one that is remarkably conserved across all eukaryotes (organisms that have a defined nucleus surrounded by a membrane).

Like Eukarya and Bacteria, Arachaea represent one of the three domains of life. But Archaea are thought to include the closest living relatives to an ancient ancestor that first hit on the idea of folding DNA.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-dna-archaea.html#jCp