Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2013 Jul 1;5(7):a012567. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a012567.
Under favorable conditions DNA can survive for thousands of years in the remains of dead organisms. The DNA extracted from such remains is invariably degraded to a small average size by processes that at least partly involve depurination. It also contains large amounts of deaminated cytosine residues that are accumulated toward the ends of the molecules, as well as several other lesions that are less well characterized.
在有利条件下,DNA 可以在死亡生物体的遗骸中存活数千年。从这些遗骸中提取的 DNA 总是通过至少部分涉及去嘌呤的过程降解到一个小的平均大小。它还含有大量脱氨的胞嘧啶残基,这些残基在分子的末端积累,以及其他一些特征不太明显的损伤。