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Competition Between The Dna Unwinding And Strand Pairing Activities Of The Werner And Bloom Syndrome Proteins, Amrita Machwe, Enerlyn M. Lozada, Liren Xiao, David K. Orren

Toxicology and Cancer Biology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The premature aging and cancer-prone Werner and Bloom syndromes are caused by defects in the RecQ helicase enzymes WRN and BLM, respectively. Recently, both WRN and BLM (as well as several other RecQ members) have been shown to possess a strand annealing activity in addition to the requisite DNA unwinding activity. Since an annealing function would appear to directly oppose the action of a helicase, we have examined in this study the dynamic equilibrium between unwinding and annealing mediated by either WRN or BLM.

RESULTS: Our investigation into the competition between annealing and unwinding demonstrates that, under standard reaction …