"DNA, that marvelous, twisty molecule of life, has an alter ego, research at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine reveals.
On rare occasions, its building blocks "rock and roll," deforming the familiar double helix into a different shape.
"We show that the simple DNA double helix exists in an alternative form -- for one percent of the time -- and that this alternative form is functional," said Hashim M. Al-Hashimi, who is the Robert L. Kuczkowski Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biophysics at U-M. "Together, these data suggest that there are multiple layers of information stored in the genetic code." The findings were published online Jan. 26 in the journal Nature."
Called a Hoogsteen base pair, the re-formed bases are actually flipped 180 degrees within the double helix, making them able to flip back. This was previously linked to damaged DNA or when it is "bound to proteins or drugs."
Ok, these videos are a little hard to understand and it's not the best quality, but they go over a great wealth of information in a very thorough textbook style way. The introductions of each movie are a little too long so you might want to fast forward. But, thank you Prof. S. Dasgupta at the Dept of Chemistry at IIT in Kharagpur!! Guy and Girls, I know this is going to be hard to get through, (it's around 30 hours) but march through it. Pretend its the greatest secret ever been told. It is! We are peering through the rabbit hole fellas. Keep reminding yourself of that. Before we can work with nature, we need to really get to know nature, hang out her, and become best buddies. Now psyche yourself up, forgive prof. Dasgupta's hard to understand English accent, and watch all these movies!
"DNA, that marvelous, twisty molecule of life, has an alter ego, research at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine reveals. 