We know that our DNA contains information to create the proteins that our body needs. We know that DNA is comparable to a cookbook in this process, containing the recipes from which the cells select a particular recipe, then another, and so on. And we know that molecular kitchen assistants (transcription factors) open up this cookbook so the cooks can read the recipes (genes) and eventually produce new proteins. But these kitchen assistants usually work extremely short shifts: a few seconds each, while a recipe takes several minutes to be read. How is this possible?
Tineke Lenstra’s research group discovered that these kitchen assistants (transcription factors) perform somewhat of a relay race while opening the recipes. That allows them to let the DNA be read long enough, despite their brief shifts that last mere seconds. Their seamless teamwork allows the cell to create enough protein to function properly. Tineke and her colleagues have published their work in Molecular Cell.
It’s quite unique that Tineke and her colleagues managed to study living cells in such great detail. The tricky part of these cells is that their contents are constantly in motion. Incredibly hard to record and study through a microscope.
That’s why they created an algorithm that allows the microscope to track one DNA recipe (gene) in living cells with great precision. Even when a gene is constantly on the move. The instructions in that algorithm can “pin” one particular point in the microscopy imaging, to allow it to track what happens to it. This creates many new opportunities to investigate cells in great detail.