In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick, from the University of Cambridge (UK), went down in the annals of the history of science after publishing an article describing the double helix structure of DNA , the universal chemical code common to all life forms on Earth. Sixty years later, scientists from the same university have just identified quadruple helix structures in the human genome . According to the researchers published in the journal Nature Chemistry , these are structures formed in regions especially rich in one of the "building blocks" of genetic material, the nitrogenous base guanine (G) .
The discovery of this structure is the result of ten years of research, and points out that quadruple chains are essential for the DNA replication process and for cell division . According to Shankar Balasubramanian, co-author of the work, the new structures are especially abundant "in the genes of cells that divide rapidly, such as cancer cells." Hence, Balasubramanian and his colleagues do not rule out that the quadruple helix structure may lead to new therapeutic strategies to stop the uncontrolled cell proliferation that characterizes cancer .
