Faulty DNA Replication Linked To Neurological Diseases

Lengthy sequences of DNA -- with their component triplet of nucleotides repeated hundreds, even thousands of times -- are known to be abnormal, causing rare but devastating neurological diseases. But how does the DNA get this way? How does it go haywire, multiplying out of control? In the current issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Sergei Mirkin, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, explains the mechanism, providing an important clue to the origin of these diseases.