Oxidative stress, ionizing radiation, and other events can induce the oxidation of the thymine in DNA to thymine glycol. The presence of thymine glycol can have significant biological consequences, and there are specific repair enzymes for thymine glycol in a wide range of organisms. The structure of a duplex DNA containing a single thymine glycol (5,6-dihydroxy-5,6-dihydrothymidine) has been determined by the combined use of NMR and restrained molecular dynamics. The duplex of d(C 1 G 2 C 3 G 4 A 5 Tg 6 A 7 C 8 G 9 C 10 C 11 ) paired with d(G 22 C 21 G 20 -C 19 T 18 A 17 T 16 G 15 C 14 G 13 G 12 ), with Tg indicating thymine glycol, has been used for these studies. The structure shows that the thymine glycol induces a significant, localized structural change with the thymine glycol largely extrahelical. This structural information is consistent with the biological consequences of thymine glycol in DNA. This structure is compared with that of a DNA duplex with an abasic site in the same sequence context.Damage to DNA can occur by the spontaneous deamination of cytosine to uracil and through the action of alkylating agents, oxidants, drugs, and toxins, ionizing radiation, and other modes of action (1-3). The exposure of DNA in cells bound to proteins as a solid or free in solution to ionizing radiation or to oxidative stress can lead to the conversion of thymine to thymine glycol (5,6-dihydroxy-5,6-dihydrothymidine). Approximately 10 -20% of the damage to DNA induced by ionizing radiation, including that used to treat tumors, is the result of thymine base oxidation and fragmentation. These products can also be produced by oxidative stress. In addition, the importance of damaged DNA as a control on the cell cycle is increasingly becoming a focus of research efforts so that the effects of damaged thymines on the structures, stabilities, dynamics, and interactions of DNA are of interest.It has been known for several decades that ionizing radiation can stop the reproduction of cells as well as kill cells. These activities form the basis for using radiation in chemotherapy, and the research in this area has been frequently reviewed (1-13). Since the mid-1950s there have been studies on the effects of ionizing radiation on the chemical integrity of DNA (4,5,7,9, 14). Ionizing radiation can induce a number of types of damage to DNA including single and double strand breaks, oxidation of the purine and pyrimidine bases, and cross-linking of DNA with proteins. Radiation-generated oxidants are thought to react with thymine to lead to the formation of thymine glycol, thymine peroxide, thymine hydroperoxide, and other oxidized forms of the base. Some of these oxidized forms of thymine subsequently react further to form urea. Some of the same types of damage also occurs to DNA during oxidative stress (5,15,16).The damage to the thymine bases in DNA is of special interest because the major forms of damaged thymine are known; thymine is the most easily oxidized base, and many of the biological consequences of damaged thymines a...