Publications related to Interplay of DNA supercoiling and catenation during the segregation of sister duplexes

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

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

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

Single-mitosis dissection of acute and chronic DNA mutagenesis and repair

Christina Ernst

How chronic mutational processes and punctuated bursts of DNA damage drive evolution of the cancer genome is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate a strategy to disentangle and quantify distinct mechanisms underlying genome evolution in single cells, dur ...

Nature Portfolio2024

A chemical biology approach to decipher chromatin ubiquitylation by RNF168

Pauline Franz

DNA damage signaling following DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) involves numerous regulating proteins, which dynamically recognize ('read') and alter ('write' or 'erase') histone post-translational modifications (PTMs). Among these PTMs, the ubiquitin syste ...

EPFL2024

Oxidative Defect Detection Within Free and Packed DNA Systems: A Quantum Mechanical/Molecular Mechanics (QM/ MM) Approach

Ursula Röthlisberger

Base excision repair enzymes (BERs) detect and repair oxidative DNA damage with efficacy despite the small size of the defects and their often only minor structural impact. A charge transfer (CT) model for rapid scanning of DNA stretches has been evoked to ...

Swiss Chemical Soc2024

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

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

Telomere protection against oxidative stress

Thu Trang Nguyen

Telomeres are nucleoprotein structures at the ends of linear chromosomes, being essential for the maintenance of genomic integrity. Telomeres have a unique structure which distinguishes chromosome termini from DNA damage sites. Shelterin complexes are the ...

EPFL2023

The THO complex counteracts TERRA R-loop-mediated telomere fragility in telomerase(+) cells and telomeric recombination in ALT(+) cells

Joachim Lingner, Rita Valador Fernandes

Telomeres are the nucleoprotein structures at the ends of linear chromosomes. Telomeres are transcribed into long non-coding Telomeric Repeat-Containing RNA (TERRA), whose functions rely on its ability to associate with telomeric chromatin. The conserved T ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2023

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

Development of multiplexed single-molecule imaging techniques to study chromatin invasion dynamics of chromatin effector proteins

Kristina Makasheva

DNA-binding proteins physically interact with the DNA and directly affect genomic functions. The eukaryotic genome is compacted into chromatin, limiting the DNA access to nuclear factors. In this Ph.D. thesis, I explored the dynamic mechanisms, that allow ...

EPFL2023

Preomic profile of BxPC-3 cells after treatment with BRC4

Andrea Cavalli

BRCA2 and RAD51 are two proteins that play a central role in homologous recombination (HR) and DNA double strand break (DSB) repair. BRCA2 assists RAD51 fibrillation and defibrillation through binding with its eight BRC repeats, with BRC4 being one of the ...

ELSEVIER2023

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

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

Individual and combined benefits of different nonequilibrium proofreading mechanisms

Paolo De Los Rios, Adélaïde Alice Mohr, Stefano Zamuner, Daniel Maria Busiello

Genome duplication, transcription, and translation are among many crucial cellular processes that need to be performed with high fidelity. However, those extremely low error rates cannot be explained with simple equilibrium thermodynamic considerations. Th ...

Amer Physical Soc2023

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

Natural competence of the pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii: an elusive phenomenon

Nina Vesel

Natural competence for transformation is an important driver of horizontal DNA exchange between different organisms. This can result in accumulation of dangerous genetic features, such as antibiotic resistance genes, in a single organism. One example of an ...

EPFL2022

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

Exploring the mechanisms governing nuclear cGAS localization and activity

Marilena Wischnewski

Recognition of pathogen-derived molecules through germline-encoded receptors is a fundamental principle of innate immunity. Pattern recognition receptors detect specific intracellular danger signals to trigger potent immune responses. The DNA sensor cyclic ...

EPFL2022