Compacting DNA at nearly boiling water.

At 83°C, the eukaryotic nucleus falls apart as scaffolding proteins collapse. Histones and other binding proteins, which usually compact DNA, detach from the DNA and lose their structure, resulting in loose DNA. These unwrapped DNA strands then melt at multiple points separating into single strands that no longer keep together. 

It is a disaster our bodies avoid by giving us the painful burning sensation. 

However, none of this happens to archaea Methanothermus fervidus which thrives at 83°C in sulfur pools in Iceland. This organism compacts its DNA with the aid of heat resistant histones (shown in green in the image), and other proteins such as Alba, Cren7 and Sul7d (omitted in the image). 

If the PCR method was a revolution what could give us the ability to stabilize DNA at high temperatures as archaea do?

I made this image for the PDB molecule of the month visualization challenge and February's topic is "Histones Across the Tree of Life" and you will find other examples at: https://lnkd.in/gwvrW_Xf

Learn more in this beautiful review: Archaea: the final frontier of Chromatin https://lnkd.in/gfAmWrC2

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Image made with Blender and Brady Johnston molecular nodes.