watching dna die

viruses are some of the most difficult foreign bodies that your immune system has to deal with; think aids and ebola. since viruses use the host's own cells to replicate the body has a hard time destroying the virus the same way that it destroys a bacteria or other foreign invader.

for these reasons the study of viruses is an important part of science and there has been an amazing breakthrough in the field.

Dr Robert Henderson's group from the University of Cambridge has produced amazing footage of a protective enzyme unraveling the DNA of a virus trying to infect a bacterial host!

the group used a Scanning Atomic Force Microscope to look at the enzyme/dna interaction at the nanoscale level.

Dr Robert Henderson, who led the Cambridge research, explains: “This is the first time that such a process has been seen in real time. To be able see these nano-mechanisms as they are really happening is incredibly exciting. We can actually see the enzyme ‘threading’ through a loop in the virus’s DNA in order to lock on to and break it, a process known as DNA cleavage."

“The microscope and new techniques give us a clear view of the molecular interactions between proteins and DNA that we could only previously interpret indirectly. The indirect methods require scientists to make assumptions to interpret their data, and video footage like this can help to provide a more direct understanding of what is really happening."

the video shows a bacterial type III restriction enzyme binding to the dna and cleaving it before it has time to infect the bacteria and it could be a model for how many other organisms use enzymes to cleave viral dna.

the work has implications beyond the use of novel microscopy since it gives clues on where the enzyme binds to the dna and can be used to look at other dna binding molecules.

read the full paper here.

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