Overview

• The end-to-end pipeline combines atomic force microscopy with advanced software and AI to visualize, trace, and measure complex DNA structures.
• Researchers say the method determines which strand passes over or under at each crossing, enabling distinction between a knot and its mirror image.
• Molecular simulations model DNA interactions with mica surfaces and generate large synthetic datasets to train future AI frameworks.
• The authors report a major speed-up in image interpretation, reducing tasks that took hours to a process completed in seconds.
• The peer-reviewed study appears in Nature Communications and stems from a six-institution collaboration across the UK, Slovakia, and France, with applications framed for studying DNA topology and protein interactions such as topoisomerases.