English

Noun

supercoil ‎(plural supercoils)

1. (genetics) A coil of the DNA helix upon itself, such as a figure eight.

Related terms

• supercoiling

See also

• topoisomerase
• DNA supercoil on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

supercoil ‎(third-person singular simple present supercoils, present participle supercoiling, simple past and past participle supercoiled)

1. (genetics) To twist circular DNA into a supercoil
   • 1995, Sara J. Felts, “Assembly and Transcription of Chromatin Templates Using RNA Polymerase III”, in Martin J. Tymms, editor, In Vitro Transcription and Translation Protocols, ISBN 0896032884, page 58:

     After deproteination, the migration of the assembled form II DNA will remain unchanged, appearing not to have been supercoiled by nucleosomes.