Four-stranded DNA found in cancer cells

摘要

Sixty years after James Watson and Francis Crick established that DNA forms a double helix, a quadruple-stranded DNA helix has turned up, and it could strengthen the fight against cancer. Quadruple helices that intertwine four, rather than two, DNA strands have been researched for decades. They have been made synthetically in the lab, but were seen only as curiosities as there was no evidence that they formed naturally. Now they have been identified in human cancer cells.