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10. Definere begrebet palindromer (symmetrisk inverterede repeats) i DNA,
Devlin, s.72

Palindrome - symmetrical inverted repeats found in DNA. This means, that two complementary sequences on the DNA helix, one on each strand, lying opposite each other have the same order of the bases when they are read in 5`-3` direction.

Palindromes are used and recognized by specific restriction enzymes that cleave both complementary DNA molecules at a specific symmetrical place.

The term "inverted repeats" is also used in cruciform DNA, but the difference is that the inverted repeats in cruciform DNA are not symmetrical. This basically means that, the template sequence on the first DNA strand has its inversed repeat on the second DNA strand couple of nucleotides down the sequence, and is not directly complementary with it because there is an uneven number of nucleotides in the template sequence (as there is in symmetrical inverted repeats)

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