| STUDY |
UV radiation destabilizes plant DNA Ultraviolet light of the same near-visible wavelengths that can lead to an increase in skin cancer in humans is harmful to plants as well, according to a team of Swiss and German researchers. Authors exposed Arabidopsis and tobacco plants in simulated sunlight to increased levels of 280- to 315-nm light (UV-B light). The plants carried a reporter gene that allowed the researchers to track recombination of segments of the plants' DNA. These recombinations increased with increasing levels of UV-B light and were accompanied by increased expression of genes involved in major DNA repair pathways (photoreactivation and recombination repair). The effect of UV-B on genome stability was amplified in a mutant plant that couldn't repair by photoreactivation the damaging pyrimidine dimers that exposure to UV-B induces, leading the researchers to suggest that recombination might be involved in eliminating these dimers |
| COMMENTS |
In an accompanying commentary, Anne B. Britt, a plant biologist at the University of California, Davis, notes that the study suggests that "depletion of the ozone layer may have a measurable effect on the mutation rate" of some plants. |
| UPDATE | 07.00 |
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