Buckyballs could disrupt functioning of DNA

December 10, 2005 | Source: NewScientist.com News Service

Computer simulations show that buckyballs have the potential to damage DNA.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University found that the buckyballs bind strongly to DNA, distorting the strands, which could interfere with the DNA’s function, disrupting replication and repair and increasing mutation rates.

But they cautioned that it remains to be determined if buckyballs even penetrate cell membranes, and if they do, whether they would penetrate the cell nucleus, where the DNA resides.