Jacylnn, a medical student, writes: “If you assign a certain color to each base, this double helix tattoo represents the first 45 nucleic acids from the first exon of p53. p53 is a transcription factor known as the “guardian of the genome.” It sends damaged cells into apoptosis and thus helps prevent cancer. I studied p53 and other targets of the SV40 tumor virus while working on a molecular biology degree at The University of Pittsburgh. I’m now a medical student at Nova Southeastern University. My husband, who is much more right-brained than I am, designed the tattoo for me.”
[Update: Thanks to eagle-eyed readers who realized that the original photo was backwards. Fortunately, the error was photographic and not a matter for laser tattoo removal.]
June 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Another one for your collection of images of left-handed DNA?
June 8th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Another Kevin beat me to it. Unless this is a mirror-image, that is not Earth DNA!
June 8th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Interesting tattoo – that could potentially fall into the category of “regrettable” a few years down the line, though.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:36 am
The wearer views this tatoo through a mirror.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I noticed the orientation of the bases before I recognized the handedness error. The base-pair “rungs” should be horizontal, not vertical!
June 8th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I’ve had it for 5 years, haven’t regretted it yet!
It’s the mirror image – but you guys are very astute
June 8th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Calm down guys! It’s a very cool artistic interpretation. I assume it was not intended as a reference diagram. After all, I don’t see five carbon sugars and the turns are quite 3.4nm. Oh wait, it’s just a tattoo!
June 8th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Thanks everyone. I’ve flipped the picture.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Too bad this chick is married!
June 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
To biology mavens who’re bright
The first pic was a very strange sight!
The DNA spiral
Is known to be chiral
And usually twists to the right.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:57 am
[...] Via|DiscoveryBlogs [...]
June 10th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Cool tattoo, love it! I’m not the tattoo kinda chick, but I want to get molecule shaped jewelry (like from molecular muse, I wrote a post on it recently) to display my love for biochem – you gotta do it somewhere!
Another Kevin – like the limmerick