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Meaning of supercoil in English:

supercoil

Pronunciation /ˈsuːpəkɔɪl/

noun

Biochemistry
another term for superhelix
‘A proposed geometry of the LacI loop as a tight supercoil away from the protein has been controversial, and it is likely that loop geometry is different for different DNA sequences.’
  • ‘Its major biological role in the bacterial cell is the removal of excessive negative supercoils from DNA to maintain the DNA at optimal superhelical density along with DNA gyrase.’
  • ‘This characteristic pattern of plateaus and jumps is observed using Drosophila melanogaster Topo II demonstrating that this enzyme simultaneously binds to the G- and T-segments and stabilizes plectonemic supercoils.’
  • ‘Interactions among supercoils can be taken into account in the second virial approximation, because at the present ionic strength electrostatic interactions are screened over a spatial extent less than the superhelical diameter.’
  • ‘The filament is able to adopt many polymorphic conformations, including left-handed and right-handed supercoils, depending on various environmental conditions.’

verb

[with object]Biochemistry

  • Form (a substance) into a superhelix.

    ‘this discovery predicted an enzyme that can supercoil DNA’
    • ‘Extensions from linear to circular supercoiled DNA were subsequently reported, including improvements that extended the coverage from low salt to physiological salt conditions.’
    • ‘Chromosomes are visible only during cell division, when the DNA is supercoiled and condensed to facilitate distribution into daughter cells.’
    • ‘Interestingly, the structure of the H-NS-DNA complex alone permits the nucleoid to respond, with high sensitivity, to changes in temperature and osmolarity, independent of additional host proteins and changes in DNA supercoiling.’
    • ‘This binding affinity to supercoiled DNA is approximately two orders-of-magnitude larger than on relaxed DNA.’
    • ‘Fortunately, the inhibitory salt effect can be alleviated in vivo by natural DNA supercoiling.’