How do bacteria repair damage from the sun?

(Phys.org) —From bacteria to plants to humans, all organisms have mechanisms that they use to repair DNA damaged by ultraviolet (UV) light. This fundamental maintenance function is critical to our health because damaged ...

Cells repair damaged DNA by a different mechanism than assumed

Defects in DNA can cause serious harm to an organism, including cell death or the development of cancer. Efficient repair mechanisms are therefore of vital importance. LMU chemist Professor Christian Ochsenfeld, Chair of ...

Electrons use DNA like a wire for signaling DNA replication

In the early 1990s, Jacqueline Barton, the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, discovered an unexpected property of DNA—that it can act like an electrical wire to transfer electrons quickly ...

The role of messenger RNA in DNA repair

An organism's genome could be compared to a complex system of instructions that allows it not only to develop, but also to carry out all the activities essential to its survival. To do this, this genome needs to be expressed ...

The secret to a longer lifespan? Gene regulation holds a clue

Natural selection has produced mammals that age at dramatically different rates. Take, for example, naked mole rats and mice; the former can live up to 41 years, nearly ten times as long as similar-size rodents such as mice.

DNA repair enzyme mapped in atomic detail

An enzyme crucial to the process of DNA repair in our cells has been mapped in atomic detail by researchers at the University of Dundee, the UK's top-rated University for Biological Sciences.

DNA repair protein caught in act of molecular theft

Scientists have observed, for the first time, an intermediate stage in the chemical process that repairs DNA methylation damage and regulates many important biological functions that impact health conditions such as obesity, ...

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