Answer to Question #64232 in Molecular Biology for Sanjukta Ghosh

Question

Does positive supercoiling promote negative supercoiling in uncoiledDNA?
I was reading a paper(for fig): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6955430_Structural_basis_for_ATP-dependent_DnaA_assembly_and_replication-origin_remodeling
Stumbled upon this: As a right-handed ATP-DnaA spiral would be expected to wrap DNA into a positive supercoil, adjacent DNA regions would be subjected to compensatory negative writhe (Fig. 6d, left). Although any superhelical strain generated by DnaA-mediated wrapping would be expected to spread throughout the topological domain that contains the origin, it may preferentially affect the nearby DUE, which is unstable and prone to spontaneous unwinding.