ARTICLE Received 28 Apr 2014 | Accepted 9 Sep 2014 | Published 24 Oct 2014 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6207 A general mechanism for competitor-induced dissociation of molecular complexes Thayaparan Paramanathan1,2,3,w, Daniel Reeves2,3, Larry J. Friedman1, Jane Kondev2,3 & Jeff Gelles1,2 The kinetic stability of non-covalent macromolecular complexes controls many biological phenomena. Here we find that physical models of complex dissociation predict that competitor molecules will, in general, accelerate the breakdown of isolated bimolecular complexes by occluding rapid rebinding of the two binding partners. This prediction is largely independent of molecular details. We confirm the prediction with single-molecule fluore- scence experiments on a well-characterized DNA strand dissociation reaction. Contrary to common assumptions, competitor-induced acceleration of dissociation can occur in biologically relevant competitor concentration ranges and does not necessarily imply ternary association of competitor with the bimolecular complex. Thus, occlusion of complex rebinding may play a significant role in a variety of biomolecular processes. The results also show that single-molecule colocalization experiments can accurately measure dissociation rates despite their limited spatiotemporal resolution. 1 Department of Biochemistry, Brandeis University, PO Box 549110, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110, USA. 2 Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), Brandeis University, PO Box 549110, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110, USA. 3 Department of Physics, Brandeis University, PO Box 549110, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110, USA. w Present address: Department of Physics, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts 02325, USA. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.K. (email:
[email protected]) or to J.G. (email:
[email protected]).