{"id":110351,"date":"2020-07-23T05:22:55","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T12:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/quadruple-dna-strands-discovered-in-healthy-cells-for-the-first-time"},"modified":"2020-07-23T05:22:55","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T12:22:55","slug":"quadruple-dna-strands-discovered-in-healthy-cells-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/quadruple-dna-strands-discovered-in-healthy-cells-for-the-first-time","title":{"rendered":"Quadruple DNA Strands Discovered In Healthy Cells For The First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When DNA forms, it usually creates the characteristic double-helix that we\u2019ve all come to recognize. However, given the right ingredients, DNA can fold with another pair of strands to create a quadruple-stranded structure that may have some pretty important roles. These structures, called G-quadruplexes (G4), have only been seen in chemistry lab experiments or in some cancer cells, so understanding exactly what their roles are has been difficult, until now.<\/p>\n

Scientists have now produced the first visualization of a G-quadruplex formation in live, healthy cells. By developing a fluorescent marker that can bind to G4s, the researchers could track the formation of a quadruplex structure for the first time, with the results published in Nature<\/a>. This provides confirmation that normal cellular processes produce these structures, and not a process gone haywire like those in cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, we have been able to prove the quadruple helix DNA exists in our cells as a stable structure created by normal cellular processes. This forces us to rethink the biology of DNA. It is a new area of fundamental biology, and could open up new avenues in diagnosis and therapy of diseases like cancer,\u201d said one of the lead researchers Dr Marco Di Antonio in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When DNA forms, it usually creates the characteristic double-helix that we\u2019ve all come to recognize. However, given the right ingredients, DNA can fold with another pair of strands to create a quadruple-stranded structure that may have some pretty important roles. These structures, called G-quadruplexes (G4), have only been seen in chemistry lab experiments or in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}