Our paper ‘Opening Pathways of the DNA Clamps Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen and Rad9-Rad1-Hus1’ has just been accepted by the journal Nucleic Acids Research. The recently solved structures of the DNA clamp protein 9-1-1 led to competing proposals regarding how 9-1-1 is loaded onto DNA. Through detailed subunit interface analysis, we identified the subunit interface which is least substantial and, therefore, serves as the opening gate for loading 9-1-1 onto chromatin. Using external forces as a surrogate of the clamp loader we also identified the dominant pathways for interface disruption in the clamp proteins PCNA and 9-1-1.