A 17-year-old patient presents to the emergency department with left wrist pain after falling off of his bike and landing on his left hand. On physical exam the thenar eminence is red, swollen, and tender to palpation, so a radiograph is ordered. The patient is worried because he learned in biology class that radiography can cause cancer through damaging DNA but the physician reassures him that radiographs give a very minor dose of radiation. What is the most common mechanism by which ionizing radiation damages DNA?
AStrand breakage
BThymidine dimer formation
CMicrosatellite instability
DCyclobutane pyrimidine dimer formation
ECytosine deamination
A 71-year-old man with colorectal cancer comes to the physician for follow-up examination after undergoing a sigmoid colectomy. The physician recommends adjuvant chemotherapy with an agent that results in single-stranded DNA breaks. This chemotherapeutic agent most likely has an effect on which of the following enzymes?
ADNA polymerase III
BTopoisomerase I
CHelicase
DTelomerase
ETopoisomerase II
A 3-year-old male child is found to have a disease involving DNA repair. Specifically, he is found to have a defect in the endonucleases involved in the nucleotide excision repair of pyrimidine dimers. Which of the following is a unique late-stage complication of this child's disease?
ATelangiectasia
BColorectal cancer
CMalignant melanoma
DLymphomas
EEndometrial cancer
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