121st General Meeting of the KCS

Type Poster Presentation
Area Life Chemistry
Room No. Event Hall
Time 4월 20일 (금요일) 11:00~12:30
Code BIO.P-260
Subject Replication of Methylated DNA Studied with Atomic Force Microscopy
Authors Ji Yoon Lee, Joon Won Park*
Department of Chemistry, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea
Abstract DNA methylation is one of the epigenetic mechanism that controls the function of genes without changing the genetic code. It is known that methylated DNA performs not only important genetic roles in normal cells, but also tumor cells. In cancer cells, DNA methylation has been observed differently from normal cells, and the degree of DNA methylation in cancer cells are thought to be epigenetic rather than genetic causes. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) have the capability of measuring intermolecular forces at the pico-Newton level while scanning surfaces at the nanometer resolution. AFM force spectroscopy has been used to observe molecular interaction and dynamics at the single-molecule level. Here, we show a study method of methylated DNA using AFM. In our approach, a DNA polymerase (DNAP) was immobilized on an AFM tip. The DNAP was allowed to capture a duplex of primer/template DNA. Specific rupture events arising from the binding of complementary bases to the DNA/DNAP complex were observed on the nucleotide-immobilized glass slide. Through this study, we propose to identify differences in DNA methylation during DNA replication process using polymerase and investigate the degree of binding between the target DNA and its complementary base at the reactive site of the polymerase during the polymerization. It is expected that the current method would enable the DNA methylation to be studied at the single cell level. Reference 1. Y. Bergman & H. Cedar. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol., 2013, 20, 274. 2. Y. J. Jung et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129, 9349. 3. P. W. Laird. Nat. Rev. Genet., 2010, 11, 191.
E-mail lizzy@postech.ac.kr