Journal of Genetics and Molecular Biology

THE CENTERS OF PREMELTONS SIGNAL THE BEGINNING AND ENDS OF GENES

Joint Event on International Conference on STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY AND PROTEOMICS & International Conference on STD-AIDS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES
September 03-04, 2018 | Bangkok ,Thailand

Henry M Sobell

University of Rochester, USA

Keynote : J Genet Mol Biol

Abstract:

Premeltons are examples of emergent structures (i.e. structural solitons) that arise spontaneously in DNA due to the presence of nonlinear excitations in its structure. They are of two kinds: B-B (or A-A) premeltons form at specific DNA regions to nucleate site-specific DNA melting. These are stationary and being globally nontopological, undergo breather motions that allow drugs and dyes to intercalate into DNA. B-A (or A-B) premeltons, on the other hand, are mobile and being globally topological, act as phaseboundaries transforming B-DNA into A-DNA during the structural phasetransition. They are not expected to undergo breather-motions. A key feature of both types of premeltons is the presence of an intermediate structural form in their central regions (proposed as being a transition state intermediate in DNA-melting and in the B- to A- transition), which differs from either A- or BDNA called beta-DNA, this is both metastable and hyperflexible and contains an alternating sugar-puckering pattern along the polymer-backbone combined with the partial-unstacking (in its lower energy-forms) of every other base-pair. Beta-DNA is connected to either B- or to A- DNA on either side by boundaries possessing a gradation of nonlinear structural-change, these being called the kink and the antikink regions. The presence of premeltons in DNA leads to a unifying theory to understand much of DNA physical-chemistry and molecularbiology. Premeltons are predicted to define the 5’ and 3’ ends of genes in naked-DNA and DNA in active-chromatin, this having important implications for understanding physical aspects of the initiation, elongation and termination of RNA-synthesis during transcription. For these and other reasons, the model will be of broader interest to the general audience working in these areas. The model explains a wide variety of data and carries within it several experimental predictions, all readily testable and will be described in my talk.

Biography:

Henry M Sobell has completed his studies at Brooklyn Technical High School (1948-1952), Columbia College (1952-1956) and the University of Virginia School of Medicine (1956-1960). Instead of practicing clinical medicine, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to join Professor Alexander Rich in the Department of Biology (1960-1965) and Helen Hay Whitney, postdoctoral fellow, where he learned the technique of single crystal x-ray analysis. He then joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Rochester, having been subsequently jointly appointed to both the Chemistry and Molecular Biophysics departments, becoming a full tenured Professor in both the departments (1965-1993).

E-mail: sobell@localnet.com

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