Linus Pauling showed evidence for a helix and planar base stacking along the helix axis. Early in 1953 Watson and Crick proposed a correct structure for the DNA double helix. Pauling later cited several reasons to explain how he had been misled about the structure of DNA, among them misleading density data and the lack of high quality X-ray diffraction photographs. During the time Pauling was researching the problem, Rosalind Franklin in England was creating the world's best images. They were key to Watson's and Crick's success. Pauling did not see them before devising his mistaken DNA structure, although his assistant Robert
Non-helical models of DNA structure Natural Science, 7, (5), 85-100, 2018. The discovery of topoisomerases, enzymes that can change the linking number of circular nucleic acids and thus "unwind" the replicating bacterial chromosome, was largely seen by the mainstream scientific community to satisfy the topological objection to the Watson–Crick helical structure. The later X-ray crystallography data for the nucleosome, which showed a helical DNA structure wrapped around the protein nucleosome core particle, was considered to provide further affirmation for the existence of the helical structure "in vivo". Non-double-helical models are not currently accepted by the mainstream scientific community. Enzymes capable of unwinding and rewinding DNA