This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Thymine dimers is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
A thymine dimer is the covalent bonding of two adjacent thymine residues within a DNA molecule, often catalyzed by ultraviolet radiation or chemical mutagenic agents. It is an example of a more general type of DNA damage known as pyrimidine dimers, which, as the name suggests, can occur between any adjacent pair of pyrimidine bases (C, T, U) (such as between 2 cytosines or a cytosine and a uracil). Excision repair enzymes and the DNA repair system can often recognize and repair this type of damage by the large kink in the DNA that it causes. In many organisms (excluding placental mammals such as humans), DNA photolyases can repair the damage directly by cleaving the dimer.
Unrepaired or mis-repaired thymine dimers and the resultant mutations can contribute to the development of skin cancers.
See also
- Nucleotide excision repair
- Pyrimidine dimers (Cyclobutyl dimer)
- Tanning activator
External links
References
- Essen LO, Klar T. (2006). Light-driven DNA repair by photolyases. Cell Mol Life Sci 63 (11), 1266-77.
 |
This biochemistry article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 19 October 2008, at 22:51.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Thymine dimers".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.