Nonenzymatic glycosylation of DNA by reducing sugars.

The process of nonenzymatic glycosylation has proven to be not only of interest to food chemists in the preservation of foodstuffs, but has become of increasing interest to biologists. The nonenzymatic glycosylation of biologically relevant proteins has become an important factor in explaining some of the posttranslational modifications of proteins observed in diabetes and aging. Using in vitro and in vivo models, we describe in this paper the implications that the nonenzymatic glycosylation of DNA may have in the biological aging process.