Correspondence
Correction
An Error in a DNA Figure
N Engl J Med 1994; 331:884September 29, 1994
- Article
To the Editor:
The structure of DNA has always fascinated me. I remember when my high-school teacher tried to explain the polarity of the strands, using the analogy of a two-way street -- the sugar-phosphate backbones being the lanes, one going from 3' to 5' and the other going from 5' to 3', and the base pairs being the median.
Imagine my enthusiasm when I discovered my “highway” in the first figure of the first article of a series on molecular biology for clinicians by Rosenthal (July 7 issue)1. The base pairs were even colored yellow. However, when I identified the carbon and oxygen atoms of the pentose ring and was “walking down the street,” I realized that the signs were put up the wrong way -- that the 3' end was labeled 5', and vice versa.
Educating us practicing physicians in the rapidly developing field of molecular biology is the right way. I look forward to doing my homework in the forthcoming articles of the series.
1 ReferencesImre Bodo, M.D.
Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC 282031
Rosenthal N . DNA and the genetic code. N Engl J Med 1994;331:39-41
Full Text | Web of Science | Medline
Author/Editor Response
Dr. Rosenthal replies:
To the Editor: Dr. Bodo is indeed on the right way. Our DNA traffic signals were inadvertently crossed. The 5' and 3' ends of the two DNA strands were mislabeled in Figure 1 (top panel). On the left-hand side of the panel, the top strand should be 5' and the bottom strand should be 3'.
Nadia Rosenthal, Ph.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital East, Charlestown, MA 02129
