A group of researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has uncovered the mechanism of how DNA is being melted to start bacterial gene transcription and how one class of antibiotics inhibits this process – an important way in killing bacteria. This discovery provides useful insight on the development of new antibiotics for bacteria that is antimicrobial resistance.

The emergence and spread of new forms of resistance remains a concern that urgently demand new antibiotics. Transcription is a vital process in bacterial cell, where genetic information in DNA is transcribed to RNA for the translation of proteins that perform cellular function. Read More... 

 

The movement of bacterial RNA Polymerase's Clamp and β-lobe (the purple and orange part in the picture, respectively) facilitates the DNA melting during initiation of transcription.
科研发现