In a paper published online in advance in Nature this week, a team led by investigators at Vanderbilt University presents the crystal structures of "Bacillus cereus AlkD glycosylase in complex with DNAs containing alkylated, mismatched, and abasic nucleotides," which they suggest may elucidate "an unprecedented nucleic acid capture mechanism for [the] excision of DNA damage." AlkD is a unique glycosylase in that it "captures the extrahelical lesion in a solvent-exposed or