DNA Repair and Sex...

We talked about DNA repair being used for damaged DNA from environmental factors, for example, radiation. You can also get damage from cellular intermediates, spontaneous chemical reactions to the cell. Is there a possible link between DNA damage repair and sex? Well, they both produce genetic variations, but what I find fascinating is that both use some of the same enzymes. The type of DNA damage repair that I went over, the excision repair, is not actually the type I'm thinking about quite as much.

There is another type where there is actually crossing over and combination before there is DNA repair. This is where you get the same sort of enzymes. Both may be mechanisms to deal with DNA damage. There is some work being done on bacterial transformation systems where they show where the more you see light you get increased rate of transformation. I realize this is not sex in the way you're supposed to think about it but it is a sexual process where you're exchanging DNA. Think about it for a minute. It makes sense.

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