'Quadruple helix' DNA seen in human cells

BBC News, Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, 20 January 2013

A representation of the four-stranded structure (L) with fluorescent
markers revealing its presence inside cells (R)

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Cambridge University scientists say they have seen four-stranded DNA at work in human cells for the first time.

The famous "molecule of life", which carries our genetic code, is more familiar to us as a double helix.

But researchers tell the journal Nature Chemistry that the "quadruple helix" is also present in our cells, and often in functions related to cancer.

They suggest that control of the structures could provide novel ways to fight the disease.

"The existence of these structures may be loaded when the cell has a certain genotype or a certain dysfunctional state," said Prof Shankar Balasubramanian from Cambridge's department of chemistry.

"We need to prove that; but if that is the case, targeting them with synthetic molecules could be an interesting way of selectively targeting those cells that have this dysfunction," he told BBC News.

Tag and track

It will be exactly 60 years ago in February that James Watson and Francis Crick famously burst into the pub next to their Cambridge laboratory to announce the discovery of the "secret of life".

What they had actually done was describe the way in which two long chemical chains wound up around each other to encode the information cells need to build and maintain our bodies.

Today, the pair's modern counterparts in the university city continue to work on DNA's complexities.

Balasubramanian's group has been pursuing a four-stranded version of the molecule that scientists have produced in the test tube now for a number of years.

It is called the G-quadruplex. The "G" refers to guanine, one of the four chemical groups, or "bases", that hold DNA together and which encode our genetic information (the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine).

The G-quadruplex seems to form in DNA where guanine exists in substantial quantities.

And although ciliates, relatively simply microscopic organisms, have displayed evidence for the incidence of such DNA, the new research is said to be the first to firmly pinpoint the quadruple helix in human cells.

'Funny target'

The team, led by Giulia Biffi, a researcher in Balasubramaninan's lab, produced antibody proteins that were designed specifically to track down and bind to regions of human DNA that were rich in the quadruplex structure. The antibodies were tagged with a fluorescence marker so that the time and place of the structures' emergence in the cell cycle could be noted and imaged.

This revealed the four-stranded DNA arose most frequently during the so-called "s-phase" when a cell copies its DNA just prior to dividing.

Prof Balasubramaninan said that was of key interest in the study of cancers, which were usually driven by genes, or oncogenes, that had mutated to increase DNA replication.

If the G-quadruplex could be implicated firmly in the development of some cancers, it might be possible, he said, to make synthetic molecules that contained the structure and blocked the runaway cell proliferation at the root of tumours.

"We've come a long way in 10 years, from simple ideas to really seeing some substance in the existence and tractability of targeting these funny structures," he told the BBC.

"I'm hoping now that the pharmaceutical companies will bring this on to their radar and we can perhaps take a more serious look at whether quadruplexes are indeed therapeutically viable targets."

Prof Shankar Balasubramanian in front of a painting by artist Annie Newman
that represents quadruplex DNA

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"..... DNA - A Quantum Force 

Now let me take you to the very small. Over a decade ago, Vladimir Poponin, a Russian scientist, used light in an experiment with one molecule of DNA. Through this experiment, he discovered a multidimensional field around DNA. Light patterned itself into a mathematical equation [sine wave] when DNA was present. He discovered that DNA had a quantum field. Not only that, it was a quantum field somehow filled with information. How else could the field pattern light into a sine wave? Now, this came from a quantum biologist, not Kryon. Yet there are many who doubt this experiment ever happened, since it shows something that no Human expected. There are those who simply don't wish to look at the fact that real quantum biologists did a real experiment! They chose to relegate all that information to the new age and not to science. It's always interesting what Humans do with science, isn't it? If it doesn't fit the 3D model of their reality, then they deny it exists.

When the full Human genome was transcribed, every single chemical in it was seen. The numbers are shocking, for in a molecule that is so small you cannot see it without an electron microscope, there are more than 3 billion chemicals! The double helix is more complex than you know. This molecule is small enough to be qualified to be in a quantum state, and Vladimir Poponin showed that it actually had a field around it, even a single DNA molecule.

Those who did the Human Genome Project wanted to know how the 3 billion chemicals of DNA create more than 26,000 genes of the Human body. By the way, there are more genes than that, but I'm using the scientists' numbers, not mine. So this is what they were interested in. They did not see DNA in a quantum state. They were not looking for that, even though the very science of DNA shouts with logic that it has to be quantum. They weren't looking for that. Instead, they counted chemicals and looked for codes, and they found them in a very odd arrangement.

They discovered that of the 3 billion chemicals in the DNA double helix, all the genes were being created in the protein-encoded parts of DNA. Three and a half percent of DNA was creating all the genes. More than 90% of the chemical makeup of DNA seemed to be random. It did absolutely nothing - that they could see or understand. Even to this day, science does not see the obvious, that the 90% is quantum and the 3.5% is linear.

Today, your quantum physicists are often dealing with ten dimensions plus time (11 dimensions) in the most popular kind of multi-dimensional physics, string theory. If you began to ask them about what this all looks like, they would say the words, "chaos" and "random patterning." For this is the way that quantum fields work. They are filled with potentials instead of absolutes, and they vary depending on many factors... including Human consciousness. Someday there will be the realization there is a strong possibility that DNA, although a biological molecule, is in a quantum state. This will break the rules of "size" in a quantum state. For it actually is "mostly quantum," and even affects the spin of the atoms that enter its field. Then the next obvious question will occur: "What information is in the ninety percent of DNA that is quantum?"

Now we get to the core truth, don't we? So I will tell you. The ninety percent of DNA which is quantum, is filled with information, both esoteric and timeless. It is a quantum blueprint for everything you are and have been since you arrived on the planet the first time. DNA contains instruction sets for your life; everything from your full Akashic Record - every single lifetime you have had - to the benevolent creator's fingerprint within the seeds of creation itself. Every single talent you ever had is there, even if you don't have any of those today... the record is there. Every predisposition of weakness and strength are there. Biologically, every single instruction to every single stem cell is there.

Did you ever wonder where stem cells get their "information" to make the Human Being? It's in the 90% of your DNA, and it's all quantum. Why do some quantum DNA contain instructions to create weaker bodies? Why is it that some predispositions for disease are there? Now I'm giving you this information so that you will understand something that is coming next... perhaps the most important biological attribute ever presented. ..."