Final answer:
Pyrimidine dimers are typically caused by UV exposure, not base analogs. UV light exposure can cause adjacent pyrimidines, commonly thymines, on a DNA strand to dimerize. Pyrimidine dimers form at a rate of a bit less than 100 per cell per day and can introduce mutations.
Step-by-step explanation:
Pyrimidine dimers are typically caused by UV exposure, not base analogs. UV light exposure can cause adjacent pyrimidines, commonly thymines, on a DNA strand to dimerize. Pyrimidine dimers form at a rate of a bit less than 100 per cell per day. These dimers can stall replication and transcription, and introduce frameshift or point mutations.