Affiliation:
1. Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Abstract
A hit-and-run metal ion
DNA polymerase is an enzyme that uses existing DNA as a template to build new DNA by adding new nucleotides to the end of the newly forming daughter strand. The enzyme mechanism that catalyzes formation of a phosphodiester bond is known to require two Mg
2+
ions, and recent crystal structures have shown that a third metal ion is present after bond formation. Gao
et al.
used time-resolved crystallography to visualize bond formation. The enzyme-substrate complex captures a third cation before bond formation occurs, and DNA synthesis cannot occur without the third metal ion. Binding of this metal ion requires thermal motion of the enzyme-substrate complex, so that catalysis is achieved by acquiring a transient cofactor.
Science
, this issue p.
1334
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Cited by
138 articles.
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