All life forms are miraculous, but some are more inexplicable than others. Trypanosomes are by far one of the most puzzling organisms on Earth: their mitochondrial genome, also called kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) forms an Olympic-ring-like network of interlinked DNA circles, challenging conventional paradigms in both biology and physics. In this review, I will discuss kDNA from the astonished perspective of a polymer physicist and tell a story of how a single sub-cellular structure from a blood-dwelling parasite is inspiring generations of polymer chemists and physicists to create new catenated materials.

中文翻译：

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Kinetoplast DNA：高分子物理学家的拓扑奥运梦。


所有的生命形式都是奇迹，但有些生命形式比其他生命形式更莫名其妙。锥虫是迄今为止地球上最令人费解的生物之一：它们的线粒体基因组，也称为动粒体 DNA （kDNA），形成了一个由相互连接的 DNA 环组成的奥林匹克环状网络，挑战了生物学和物理学中的传统范式。在这篇评论中，我将从聚合物物理学家的惊奇角度讨论 kDNA，并讲述来自血液寄生虫的单个亚细胞结构如何激发一代又一代聚合物化学家和物理学家创造新的链状材料的故事。