ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Cryo-EM reveals a nearly complete PCNA loading process and unique features of the human alternative clamp loader CTF18-RFC.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanistic diversity of clamp loading at small DNA gaps.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Review
- Article
- Review
- The genetic and biochemical basis of human leading strand synthesis.Nature communications · 2025Article
- PCNA is a nucleotide exchange factor for the clamp loader ATPase complex.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Structure of the human CTF18-RFC clamp loader bound to PCNA.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- PCNA is a Nucleotide Exchange Factor for the Clamp Loader ATPase Complex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The proofreading mechanism of the human leading-strand DNA polymerase ε holoenzyme.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A tale of two strands: Decoding chromatin replication through strand-specific sequencing.Molecular cell · 2025Review
- Disruption of the moonlighting function of CTF18 in a patient with T-lymphopenia.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Structures of the human leading strand Polε-PCNA holoenzyme.Nature communications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The DNA sliding clamp PCNA is a multipurpose platform for DNA polymerases and many other proteins involved in DNA metabolism. The topologically closed PCNA ring needs to be cracked open and loaded onto DNA by a clamp loader, e.g., the well-studied pentameric ATPase complex RFC (RFC1-5). The CTF18-RFC complex is an alternative clamp loader found recently to bind the leading strand DNA polymerase ε and load PCNA onto leading strand DNA, but its structure and the loading mechanism have been unknown. By cryo-EM analysis of in vitro assembled human CTF18-RFC-DNA-PCNA complex, we have captured seven loading intermediates, revealing a detailed PCNA loading mechanism onto a 3'-ss/dsDNA junction by CTF18-RFC. Interestingly, the alternative loader has evolved a highly mobile CTF18 AAA+ module likely to lower the loading activity, perhaps to avoid competition with the RFC and to limit its role to leading strand clamp loading. To compensate for the lost stability due to the mobile AAA+ module, CTF18 has evolved a unique β-hairpin motif that reaches across RFC2 to interact with RFC5, thereby stabilizing the pentameric complex. Further, we found that CTF18 also contains a separation pin to locally melt DNA from the 3'-end of the primer; this ensures its ability to load PCNA to any 3'-ss/dsDNA junction, facilitated by the binding energy of the E-plug to the major groove. Our study reveals unique structural features of the human CTF18-RFC and contributes to a broader understanding of PCNA loading by the alternative clamp loaders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.