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Photobiology of Monodelphis domestica
R D Ley1, V E Reeve, D F Kusewitt
1Department of Cell Biology and Physiology and the Cancer Research and Treatment Center, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
Developmental and Comparative Immunology
|April 28, 2000
Abstract:
The gray, short-tailed opossum, Monodelphis domestica, has been used for photobiologic studies since 1984. The presence of a light-activated DNA repair pathway in the tissues of Monodelphis has been used to identify pyrimidine dimers in DNA as initiating events for a number of ultraviolet radiation (UVR)-induced pathologies of the skin and cornea. Furthermore, Monodelphis, unlike common laboratory rodents, is susceptible to the induction of melanoma by UVR alone.