Crystallography in the Study of Protein-DNA Interactions

Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of protein-DNA cocrystal structures solved at atomic resolution (Table 1 ; for reviews see [74 –76 ]). This has allowed a detailed understanding of how specific proteins interact with DNA (e.g., prokaryotic repressors), but has not facilitated the formulation of a common protein-DNA recognition code, which although suggested earlier (54 ), now appears to be too simplistic (77 ). However, some general observations have emerged from these recent protein-DNA crystal structures, some of which are discussed below.