Thermodynamic and structural analysis of DNA damage architectures related to replication.

Damaged DNA, generated by the abstraction of one of five hydrogen atoms from the 2'-deoxyribose ring of the nucleic acid, can contain a variety of lesions, some of which compromise physiological processes. Recently, DNA damage, resulting from the formation of a C3'-thymidinyl radical in DNA oligomers, was found to be dependent on nucleic acid structure. Architectures relevant to DNA replication were observed to generate larger amounts of strand-break and 1-(2'-deoxy- β -D-threo-pentofuranosyl)thymidine formation than that observed for duplex DNA.