Untying knots with force
July 26th, 2021 by Pan T. X. Li
Nature Chemical Biology, Published online: 26 July 2021; doi:10.1038/s41589-021-00856-w
RNA knot-like structures function as an efficient physical barrier to RNA exoribonucleases. Single-molecule mechanical manipulation is used to unfold these structures and unravel the cause of their unusual mechanical resistance from a different direction.