depyrimidination

English

Etymology

de- +‎ pyrimidine +‎ -ation

Noun

depyrimidination (countable and uncountable, plural depyrimidinations)

1. (organic chemistry, biochemistry) A process in which the chemical bond linking a pyrimidine (cytosine or thymine) to a deoxyribose sugar breaks spontaneously. It occurs at a lower rate compared to depurination with only 500 cytosine and thymine bases lost per cell per day in a typical mammalian cell.