Quadruple-Stranded DNA Seen in Healthy Human Cells for the First Time
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Quadruple-stranded DNA seen in healthy human cells for the first time:
The world's most famous molecule - the DNA double helix - sometimes doubles up again. Researchers have now found this quadruple-stranded form in healthy human cells for the first time.
Four-stranded DNA has been seen before in some cancer cells and in lab-based chemistry experiments, but this is the first time the molecule has been visualised in healthy, living human cells, as a stable structure created by normal cellular processes.
[...] Zoe Waller at the University of East Anglia, UK, says the work adds to the evidence that the quadruplex structures form part of normal DNA regulation and function, and that our view of the DNA double helix may be out of date. We presume that this is the normal, native state of DNA, but this work is another exceptional example of mounting evidence that DNA is not a fixed structure or shape," she says.
Journal Reference:
Marco Di Antonio, Aleks Ponjavic, Antanas Radzeviius, et al. Single-molecule visualization of DNA G-quadruplex formation in live cells, Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/s41557-020-0506-4)
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