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Letter

Nature Genetics 34, 326–329 (1 July 2003) | doi:10.1038/ng1172

Cadmium is a mutagen that acts by inhibiting mismatch repair

Yong Hwan Jin , Alan B Clark , Robbert J C Slebos , Hanan Al-Refai , Jack A Taylor , Thomas A Kunkel , Michael A Resnick & Dmitry A Gordenin

Most errors that arise during DNA replication can be corrected by DNA polymerase proofreading or by post-replication mismatch repair (MMR). Inactivation of both mutation-avoidance systems results in extremely high mutability that can lead to error catastrophe.