This question is more of an analysis of a science journal article pertaining to

Question

This question is more of an analysis of a science journal article pertaining to genetics.

I’m taking my first steps in the field and would like some help understanding this article.

This is is the journal article link copy and paste on your browser:

http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC46920

Alternative link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7687065

Or the pdf version: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC46920/pdf/pnas01470-0451.pdf

1.) Open the pdf version for the full article

2.) My question is : Can you make it simpler to understand this paper? State the general thesis, and the question the scientists are asking, and how did they approach the problem? Finally the conclusions they reached.

Explanation / Answer

The paper shows that when the crystal structure for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase was sequenced, it shows bent DNA. The bend separates the A-form and B-form of the template-primer. It also shows that there are highly conserved sequences located in p66 palm near the active site of the polymerase. The nucleic acid polymerisation process is one which helps in understanding the structure of HIV-1 RT/DNA/Fab complex. The scientist in this paper has tried to find out the structure of the RT-dsDNA-Fab8 at 3.0A resolution. The process that is used is the electron density map calculation along with identification of secondary structural elements of HIV-1 RT.

It was found that the polymerase contains the p66 and p51 each of which contains four sub-domains. The template primer binds to the large cleft which is formed between the fingers, palm and thumb of p66. There is density observed due to p66 thumb which is an upright position in DNA containing structure. The template primer gets a structure to form A-form DNA near the polymerase active site and to B-form DNA near the RNaseH active site.

There is strong interaction between the alpha helix and p66 thumb which gives all the position and structure.

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