Supercoiling of Intracellular DNA Can Occur in Eukaryotic Cells

The supercoiling of 2 micron DNA in yeast by a process or processes that generate positively and negatively supercoiled domains was shown by the use of yeast DNA topoisomerase mutants expressing Escherichia coli DNA topoisomerase I, an enzyme that relaxes negative supercoils specifically. Intracellular 2 micron DNA becomes positively supercoiled in yeast top1 top2 ts strains expressing the E. coli enzyme when neither one of the yeast DNA topoisomerases I and II is functional. Examination of the linking number distributions of plasmids bearing the inducible promoters of GAL1 and GAL10 genes indicates that the generation of supercoiled domains of opposite signs is related to transcription.