The knowledge that science delivers is a function of several variables. One such variable is the tools we possess. In the 1980s and 90s, the tools of recombinant DNA technology were merged with biochemistry and scientists determined that life was machine-dependent. Today, scientists such as Rutgers researcher Richard H. Ebright and his collaborators use even more sophisticated tools to explore the mechanisms of these machines, uncovering a world of amazing sophistication.

Ebright et al. used “single-molecule methods,” where they manipulated individual molecules of a machine and watched what happened. In this case, these scientists studied how RNA polymerase (RNAP), the molecular machine responsible for creating and sustaining the RNA world, functioned to initiate the process of transcription. And what they found was completely unexpected.

When RNAP originally binds to the DNA, it remains stationary as it draws the DNA within its cavities. The unwinding of the DNA then allows this machine to accumulate sufficient free energy to eventually spring forward to begin the process of transcription:

Taken together, the two studies answer the longstanding question of how the machine acquires the energy required to break its interactions with, and leave, the start site. The machine acquires this energy by unwinding DNA and pulling unwound DNA during initial transcription. As DNA is unwound, energy is stored in the system, in the same manner, Ebright notes, as winding the rubber band of a rubber-band-powered airplane stores energy. Eventually, there is sufficient energy stored in the system that the machine is able to break its interactions with the start site, to shoot forward and, at the same instant, to rewind the unwound DNA.

As we continue to gather higher and higher resolution looks at the workings of the cell, it continues to elicit awe.