Finding the right match fast.

Nandakumar, Divya; Patel, Smita S · Cell · 2015

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

DNA recombinases face the daunting task of locating and pairing up specific sequences among millions of base pairs in a genome, all within about an hour. Qi et al. show that recombinases solve this problem by searching in 8-nt microhomology units, reducing the search space and accelerating the homology search.

Medical subject headings