Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025:187:147-193.
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-68827-0_12.

Nucleic Acids and Electrical Signals

Affiliations
Review

Nucleic Acids and Electrical Signals

Colin D McCaig. Rev Physiol Biochem Pharmacol. 2025.

Abstract

Nucleic acids are highly charged, and electrical forces are involved heavily in how our DNA is compacted and packaged into such a small space, how chromosomes are formed, and how DNA damage is repaired. In addition, electrical forces are crucial to the formation of non-canonical DNA structures called G-Quadruplexes which play multiple biological roles.

Keywords: Cell cycle; Chromatid; Chromosome behaviour; Condensin; DNA repair; DNA replication; G-quadruplexes; Nucleic acids; Telomere.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

References

    1. AlMalki FA, Flemming CS, Zhang J, Feng M, Sedelnikova SE, Ceska T, Rafferty JB, Sayers JR, Artymiuk PJ (2016) Direct observation of DNA threading in flap endonuclease complexes. Nat Struct Mol Biol 23:640–646 - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Annunziato A (2008) DNA packaging: nucleosomes and chromatin. Nat Edu 1:26
    1. Arcovito A, Chiarella S, Longa SD, Matteo AD, Sterzo CL, Scaglione GL, Federici L (2014) Synergic role of Nucleophosmin three-helix bundle and a flanking unstructured tail in the interaction with G-quadruplex DNA. J Biol Chem 289:21230–21241 - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Baker CM, Grant GH (2007) Role of aromatic amino acids in protein–nucleic acid recognition. Biopolymers 85:456–470 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Beseda T, Cápal P, Kubalová I, Schubert V, Doležel J, Šimková H (2020) Mitotic chromosome organization: general rules meet species-specific variability. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 18:1311–1319 - PubMed - PMC - DOI

LinkOut - more resources