User talk:ElNando888/Blog/Reverse Transcriptase

Re Unbreakable stacks

Once it gets past the bar code, wouldn't the effect of the reverse transcription being blocked be seen in the SHAPE data as a highly reactive base immediately preceding the blocked base?  I don't see that in the Try 1 Bracing data.

Omei (talk) 16:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

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This would seem logical, but actually, I don't think it would. It's only an intuition, but if Reverse Transcriptase is anything like the other polymerases, then it has a 3D geometry, with an entrance, a channel where the single-stranded nucleotides slide one by one, and only then, it reaches an internal "pocket" called the active site. The corollary is that the stacks have to be broken open some time before the RT adds the complementary DNA base. What length exactly? no clue, but there's a hint that says that it could be as much as 6 bases. And the blocking point may not be at the base of the stack as we see it in the MFE structure. So it's hard to tell...

-- ElNando888 (talk) 19:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

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But where in the SHAPE data for that design do you find any evidence for the interpretation that the reverse transcription gets blocked, once it has gotten by the barcode?

Omei (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

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