Letter: Free radicals in the sugar moiety of x-irradiated DNA.

Abstract

A brief description is presented of an esr study of x-irradiated solutions of D-ribose, deoxy-D-ribose, their corresponding nucleosides and nucleotides, and DNA. Solutions were respectively in water, 6MH/sub 2/SO/sub 4/, and 0.5N NaOH. It is concluded that, next to hydrogen abstraction radicals, either in C/sub 5/ or C/sub 4/, one must consider the existence of radicals corresponding to the abstraction of an OH group in isolated sugars, and to the liberation of a phosphate group in the nucleotide, or in DNA itself. (UK)