Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2013;767:1-16. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-5037-5_1.
First discovered in the 1970s, DNA helicases were initially described as enzymes that use chemical energy to separate (i.e., to unwind) the complementary strands of DNA. Because helicases are ubiquitous, display a range of fascinating biochemical activities, and are involved in all aspects of DNA metabolism, defects in human helicases are linked to a variety of genetic disorders, and helicase research continues to be important in understanding the molecular basis of DNA replication, recombination, and repair. The purpose of this book is to organize this information and to update the traditional view of these enzymes, because it is now evident that not all helicases possess bona fide strand separation activity and may function instead as energy-dependent switches or translocases. In this chapter, we will first discuss the biochemical and structural features of DNA-the lattice on which helicases operate-and its cellular organization. We will then provide a historical overview of helicases, starting from their discovery and classification, leading to their structures, mechanisms, and biomedical significance. Finally, we will highlight several key advances and developments in helicase research, and summarize some remaining questions and active areas of investigation. The subsequent chapters will discuss these topics and others in greater detail and are written by experts of these respective fields.
DNA 解旋酶最早于 20 世纪 70 年代被发现，最初被描述为利用化学能将 DNA 的互补链分离（即解旋）的酶。由于解旋酶无处不在，具有多种迷人的生化活性，并且参与 DNA 代谢的各个方面，因此人类解旋酶的缺陷与多种遗传疾病有关，解旋酶研究对于理解 DNA 复制、重组和修复的分子基础仍然很重要。本书的目的是组织这些信息并更新这些酶的传统观点，因为现在很明显，并非所有的解旋酶都具有真正的链分离活性，而是可能作为能量依赖性开关或转位酶发挥作用。在本章中，我们将首先讨论 DNA 的生化和结构特征——解旋酶作用的晶格及其细胞组织。然后，我们将从发现和分类开始，对解旋酶进行历史概述，直到它们的结构、机制和生物医学意义。最后，我们将重点介绍解旋酶研究的一些关键进展和发展，并总结一些遗留问题和活跃的研究领域。随后的章节将更详细地讨论这些主题和其他主题，并且由这些领域的专家撰写。
