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Happy Hollidays: 40th anniversary of the Holliday junction
1Cancer Research UK, London Research Institute, Clare Hall Laboratories, South Mimms, Hertfordshire EN6 3LD, UK.
Nature Reviews. Molecular Cell Biology
|November 3, 2004
Abstract:
In 1964, the geneticist Robin Holliday proposed a mechanism of DNA-strand exchange that attempted to explain gene-conversion events that occur during meiosis in fungi. His proposal marked the birthday of the now famous cross-stranded DNA structure, or Holliday junction. To understand the importance of the Holliday model we must look back in the history of science beyond the last 40 years, to a time when theories of heredity were being proposed by Gregor Johann Mendel.
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