Publications related to Isothermal multiple displacement amplification of DNA templates in minimally buffered conditions using phi29 polymerase

Chromosome organization shapes replisome dynamics in Caulobacter crescentus

Suliana Manley, Laurent Casini, Chen Zhang

DNA replication in bacteria takes place on highly compacted chromosomes, where segregation, transcription, and repair must occur simultaneously. Within this dynamic environment, colocalization of sister replisomes has been observed in many bacterial specie ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Advancing Cell-Free Synthetic Biology: From sustained PURE protein synthesis to an isothermal one-pot DNA replication system

Laura Sophie Grasemann

One of the goals of synthetic biology is the development of an artificial cell. Building an artificial cell from scratch will provide a deeper understanding of fundamental mechanisms and models in biology and promises to contribute towards building novel p ...

EPFL2024

Resolving bacterial cell biology: from replisome dynamics to cell wall synthesis

Chen Zhang

Bacteria are ubiquitous single cellular organisms. Compared to eukaryotic cells, bacteria have two unique characteristics: the membrane-less nucleoid and the cell wall built of peptidoglycan (PG). In most bacteria, a single circular chromosome is compacted ...

EPFL2024

C2CAplus: A One-Pot Isothermal Circle-to-Circle DNA Amplification System

Sebastian Maerkl, Laura Sophie Grasemann

Rolling circle amplification (RCA) is a widely used DNA amplification method that uses circular template DNA as input and produces multimeric, linear single- or double-stranded DNA. Circle-to-circle amplification (C2CA) has further expanded this method by ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

Electronic readout of DNA amplification in nanoliter chambers. Strategies towards highly parallel semiconductor-based nucleic acid amplification testing

Saurabh Tomar

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been the most significant driver in the field of nucleic acid testing (NAT) since its invention. Popularized as an abbreviation by the Covid-19 pandemic, PCR-based methods are the gold standard in the field of diagnostic ...

EPFL2023

Recycling of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Kits

Francesco Stellacci, Yong Zhu, Weina Liu

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) kits have been used as common diagnosing tools during the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, with daily worldwide usage in the millions. It is well known that at the beginn ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Regulation and impact of TERRA R-loops at human telomeres

Rita Valador Fernandes

Telomeres are the nucleoprotein structures found at the ends of linear chromosomes. They ensure that the termini of chromosomes are not inappropriately recognized as sites of DNA damage, and are therefore crucial for genome stability. In spite of the heter ...

EPFL2023

Achieving high hybridization density at DNA biosensor surfaces using branched spacer and click chemistry

Mounir Driss Mensi, Sandrine Gerber, Lucas Mayoraz, Perrine Agnes Edith Robin, Alireza Kavand

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the necessity to develop fast, highly sensitive and selective virus detection methods. Surface-based DNA-biosensors are interesting candidates for this purpose. Functionalization of solid substrates with DNA must be pr ...

2023

A field-capable rapid plant DNA extraction protocol using microneedle patches for botanical surveying and monitoring

Sebastian Maerkl, Jonathan Selz, Nicolas Rémi Adam

PremiseA novel protocol for rapid plant DNA extraction using microneedles is proposed, which supports botanic surveys, taxonomy, and systematics. This protocol can be conducted in the field with limited laboratory skills and equipment. The protocol is vali ...

WILEY2023

Allosteric control of type I-A CRISPR-Cas3 complexes and establishment as effective nucleic acid detection and human genome editing tools

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Dongchun Ni

Type I CRISPR-Cas systems typically rely on a two-step process to degrade DNA. First, an RNA-guided complex named Cascade identifies the complementary DNA target. The helicase-nuclease fusion enzyme Cas3 is then recruited in trans for processive DNA degrad ...

CELL PRESS2022

Polydimethylsiloxane microstructure-induced acoustic streaming for enhanced ultrasonic DNA fragmentation on a microfluidic chip

Thomas Lehnert, Martinus Gijs, Lin Sun

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an essential technology for DNA identification in genomic research. DNA fragmentation is a critical step for NGS and doing this on-chip is of great interest for future integrated genomic solutions. Here we demonstrate fa ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022

Electrochemical sensors for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus

Somanath Jagannath, Neeraj Kumar

Coronavirus (COVID-19), a deadly pandemic has spread worldwide and created many global health issues. Though methods of its detection are being continuously developed for the early detection and monitoring of COVID-19, still there is need for more novel me ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2022

Identification and characterization of proteins that protect human telomeres from fragility

Anna Christina Näger

Difficulties to replicate telomeres - the ends of our chromosomes - can cause telomere shortening and genome instability. These difficulties are due to the repetitive DNA sequence and distinct structures at telomeres that challenge the semi-conservative DN ...

EPFL2022

Towards an artificial cell: Development of a system which self-regenerates the protein components of the PURE system in microfluidic reactors

Barbora Lavickova

Thanks to recent advancements in synthetic biology, the dream of creating a synthetic cell has become feasible. However, due to its inherent complexity, one of the fundamental functions of all living systems, i.e., self-replication, remains to be introduce ...

EPFL2021

m6A methylation potentiates cytosolic dsDNA recognition in a sequence-specific manner

Andrea Ablasser, Muhammet Fatih Gülen

Nucleic acid sensing through pattern recognition receptors is critical for immune recognition of microbial infections. Microbial DNA is frequently methylated at the N-6 position of adenines (m6A), a modification that is rare in mammalian host DNA. We show ...

ROYAL SOC2021

The human telomeric proteome during telomere replication

Joachim Lingner, Aleksandra Vancevska, Thomas Frédéric Lunardi, Gérald Joseph Paul Lossaint, Chih-Yi Gabriela Lin

Telomere shortening can cause detrimental diseases and contribute to aging. It occurs due to the end replication problem in cells lacking telomerase. Furthermore, recent studies revealed that telomere shortening can be attributed to difficulties of the sem ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2021

A partially self-regenerating synthetic cell

Sebastian Maerkl, Nadanai Laohakunakorn, Barbora Lavickova

Self-regeneration is a fundamental function of all living systems. Here we demonstrate partial molecular self-regeneration in a synthetic cell. By implementing a minimal transcription-translation system within microfluidic reactors, the system is able to r ...

Nature Research2020

Structural transitions and mechanochemical coupling in the nucleoprotein filament explain homology selectivity and Rad51 protein cooperativity in cellular DNA repair

Daniel Migliozzi

The nucleoprotein filament (NPF) is the fundamental element of homologous recombination (HR), a major mechanism for the repair of double-strand DNA breaks in the cell. The NPF is made of the damaged DNA strand surrounded by recombinase proteins, and its se ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2020

Redox Properties of Native and Damaged DNA from Mixed Quantum Mechanical/Molecular Mechanics Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Ursula Röthlisberger, Ivano Tavernelli, Polydefkis Diamantis

The redox properties of two large DNA fragments composed of 39 base pairs, differing only by an 8-oxoguanine (8oxoG) defect replacing a guanine (G), were investigated in physiological conditions using mixed quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) m ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2020

Establishing a Ternary System for Optical Monitoring of DNA-Protein Interactions with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Shang-Jung Wu

DNA-protein interactions lie at the crux of life's essential processes. As such, various technologies have been developed to characterize these interactions. The distinct advantages of these technologies can be leveraged to study different facets of these ...

EPFL2020