Bloom Syndrome Helicase Compresses Single-Stranded DNA into Phase-Separated Condensates

Bloom syndrome protein (BLM) is a conserved RecQ family helicase involved in the maintenance of genome stability. BLM has been widely recognized as a genome "caretaker" that processes structured DNA. In contrast, our knowledge of how BLM behaves on single-stranded (ss) DNA is still limited. Here, we demonstrate that BLM possesses the intrinsic ability for phase separation and can co-phase separate with ssDNA to form dynamically arrested protein/ssDNA co-condensates. The introduction of ATP potentiates the capability of BLM to condense on ssDNA, which further promotes the compression of ssDNA against a resistive force of up to 60 piconewtons. Moreover, BLM is also capable of condensing replication protein A (RPA)- or RAD51-coated ssDNA, before which it generates naked ssDNA by dismantling these ssDNA-binding proteins. Overall, our findings identify an unexpected characteristic of a DNA helicase and provide a new angle of protein/ssDNA co-condensation for understanding the genomic instability caused by BLM overexpression under diseased conditions.