Synopses & Reviews
Despite remarkable progress in genome science, we are still far from a clear understanding of how genomic DNA is packaged without entanglement into a nucleus, how genes are wrapped up in chromatin, how chromatin structure is faithfully inherited from mother to daughter cells, and how the differential expression of genes is enabled in a given cell type. Exploring and answering these questions constitutes one of the next frontiers in the 21st century. We are just beginning to appreciate how Multifarious DNA structures provide additional structural and functional dimensions to chromatin organization and gene expression. DNA Conformation and Transcription is the first book that compiles the fruits of the studies that have been performed to date to solve the riddle 'written' in DNA conformation ("conformation code"). This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field by covering history of the field, up-to-date topics, clarifications of present day research, and future perspective of what is still to be discovered. Thus, it serves as an invaluable source of information on the "conformation code".
Table of Contents
DNA: alternative conformations and biology.- Sequence-specific variations in helix conformation and their biological importance.- Curved DNA and prokaryotic promoter function: a mechanism of transcriptional activation.- Repression of transcription by curved DNA and nucleoid protein H-NS: a mode of bacterial gene regulation.- Curved DNA and eukaryotic transcription.- Putative roles of kin17, a mammalian protein binding curved DNA, in transcription.- Roles for Z-DNA and double-stranded RNA in transcription: encoding genetic information by shape rather than by sequence.- Do DNA triple helices or quadruplexes have a role in transcription?.- Nucleic acid structures and the transcription defects in Fragile X syndrome and Friedreich's ataxia.- Possible roles of DNA supercoiling in transcription.- Gene regulation by HMG1, 2, I/Y and related architectural DNA-binding proteins.- Molecular mechanisms of male sex determination: the enigma of SRY.- Unusual DNA, chromatin structure, and transcription.- DNA bendability and nucleosome positioning in transcriptional regulation.