First discovered by the famous tag team duo Watson and Crick, DNA, the building block of life, has long been thought to exist in mostly a double-helix structure within our cells. Now, 60 years later, scientists have discovered that it can be found in humans cells in another form - a quadruple helix.
The findings, published in Nature Chemistry, are the result of 10 years of research from professor Shankar Balasubramanian and his group over at the University of Cambridge. The DNA quadruple helix, also known as G-quadruplexes, occurs in guanine-rich areas and are most commonly found in the period right before the cell divides (the s phase).
The research also indicates that DNA is a far more malleable structure than previously thought, and changes over time.
The exciting part? It seems that they might be a key to battling cancer since they can negatively affect a cancer cell's ability to properly divide.
"We are seeing links between trapping the quadruplexes with molecules and the ability to stop cells dividing, which is hugely exciting," Balasubramanian said.
"The research indicates that quadruplexes are more likely to occur in genes of cells that are rapidly dividing, such as cancer cells. For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated -- using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalized treatments in the future."
Of course, treatments of this kind are still a long ways away, and keep in mind that personalized gene therapy involving DNA manipulation is not going to come cheap. Still, it's an important step into utilizing our body's own mechanisms to keep it healthy.
"This research further highlights the potential for exploiting these unusual DNA structures to beat cancer -- the next part of this pipeline is to figure out how to target them in tumour cells," said Dr. Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK.
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