SCIENTIFIC CATEGORY
It has been shown (Ogawa et al., Science, 1993) that the bacterial
RecA protein and the eukaryotic Rad51 protein form similar filaments
on DNA. Electron microscopic images of these filaments were obtained
in my laboratory, and we used the helical symmetry present in these
filaments to recontruct the three-dimensions. A surface density was
chosen, and this was tesselated using a "marching cubes" algorithm
with the triangular mesh output in the Advanced Visualizer obj format.
A model for the extended, untwisted DNA was also generated, and
output in the same obj format. These surfaces were imported into
the Personal Visualizer, and rendered using a transparent glass for the
protein surfaces, which enables us to see the DNA near the axis in
each filament. The resulting figure was used on the cover of the
26 March 1993 issue of Science magazine.
Hardware used: Iris 4D/85 GT
Software used: Personal Visualizer and custom software
Created by: Dr. Edward H. Egelman, Univ. of Minnesota, Dept. of
Cell Biology
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