DNA supercoil introduced to directly visualize individual plectonemes along supercoiled DNA which would further allow to study the interactions of DNA processing proteins with supercoiled DNA. In that study, Sytox Orange (an intercalating dye), has been used to induce supercoiling on surface tethered DNA molecules. DNA supercoiling is important for DNA packaging within all cells. Because the length of DNA can be thousands of times that of a cell, packaging this genetic material into the cell or nucleus (in eukaryotes) is a difficult feat. Supercoiling of DNA reduces the space and allows for DNA to be packaged. In prokaryotes, plectonemic supercoils are
DNA repair DNA repair DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA damage, resulting in as many as 1 million individual molecular lesions per cell per day. Many of these lesions cause structural damage to the DNA molecule and can alter or eliminate the cell's ability to transcribe the gene that the affected DNA encodes. Other lesions induce potentially harmful mutations in the cell's genome, which affect the survival of its