Talk:Helicase
It should be noted that there are RNA helicases that unwind RNA duplexes and also rearrange RNA-protein complexes.
E. coli contains 12 different helicases and some of them are not donut shaped. These non-hexameric helicases such as Rep and UvrD have been proposed to function as monomer or dimer. There is no direct evidence that any of the bacterial helicases can unwind DNA as a monomer.
This is interesting too. Plz, modify it so it doesn't look like a comment. Also add some info about the other 11 helicases. -- Boris 16:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Does helicase move along or drag DNA through?
According to Mechanism of T7 Primase/Helicase, "The helicase domain unwinds DNA by shuttling the 3'-end of the duplex DNA away from the molecule by pulling the 5'-strand through the enzyme." The animation is fascinating. 121.208.180.204 07:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- That's a good question, although the answer is quite logical. Helicase is to DNA like human is to earth. Imagine yourself walking the earth, does the earth spin because of your movement? The mass of a DNA strand is so enormous compared to the mass of a helicase molecule that it should hardly move at all. Also, by taking real zippers into account, the "base pairs" hardly move when the zipper opens. So the answer should be that helicase moves along the double helix causing a minuscule movement of the helix Redtails (talk) 15:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- XPB is ATP dependent - I guess that the helicase uses ATP to move along the DNA molecule. To be honest it doesn't really make all that much difference anyway. Smartse (talk) 15:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Helicase Jokes
I think we should consider adding a joke section and we could start with this joke: "If I were a protein, I would be helicase so I could unzip your genes." :P Rage italic 15:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
That joke used to be on this page, but it was removed. I don't feel it is relevant to this article. Amboo85 (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Enzyme or protein?
My "Molecular Cell Biology" text book calls it an enzyme and I was also told that in cell biology lectures. Is the book out of date?Smartse (talk) 16:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
- I've changed it - the -ase suffix means they are enzymes and they were already categorised so at the bottom of the article. The references already listed say they are enzymes too. Smartse (talk) 11:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- Nearly all enzymes, apart from ribozymes, are proteins. Helicase is a protein, so your textbook is correct.