Shedding light on the interaction between DNA and UVA radiation
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
Ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation is now known to cause skin cancers. The first information on the way in which UVA radiation acts directly on DNA has been revealed by a CNRS team from the Laboratoire Francis Perrin in collaboration with a CEA-Inac laboratory in Grenoble. The interaction between UVA and DNA results from the collective behavior of the bases of the DNA double helix, which causes chemical lesions that can induce carcinogenic mutations. This work is published on-line on 18 March 2011 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.