palindrome (redirected from Epitipe)

pal·in·drome (pln-drm)

n.

A segment of double-stranded DNA in which the nucleotide sequence of one strand reads in reverse order to that of the complementary strand.

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palin·dromic (-drmk, -drmk) adj.

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palindrome

literally, something that reads the same backwards as forwards. In nucleic acid biochemistry palindromic sequences of 4 to 10 or more base pairs occur not infrequently. These are of interest because they are recognition sites for cleavage by restriction endonuclease enzymes; responsible for secondary structures in nucleic acids such as the folding of RNA molecules or the hairpin structures found at the termini of the single-stranded DNA genome of parvoviruses.

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interrupted palindrome

restriction enzymes such as BglI recognize sequences which are interrupted palindromes, e.g. GCNNN?NGGC where N is any nucleotide.