Mechanisms and implications of the age-associated decrease in DNA

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different ages. There was a significant decrease with aging in the repair rates of both thymine dimers and. (6–4) photoproducts (P
Mechanisms and implications of the age-associated decrease in DNA repair capacity DAVID GOUKASSIAN,1 FATEN GAD,1 MINA YAAR, MARK S. ELLER, UMBEREEN S. NEHAL, AND BARBARA A. GILCHREST2 Department of Dermatology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA ABSTRACT Skin cancer incidence is clearly linked to UV irradiation and increases exponentially with age. We studied the rate of removal of thymine dimers and (6 – 4) photoproducts in UV-irradiated human dermal fibroblasts derived from donors of different ages. There was a significant decrease with aging in the repair rates of both thymine dimers and (6 – 4) photoproducts (P