Before a cell can divide, it has to precisely duplicate its entire genetic information. However, the DNA in the cell exists ...

Scientists have discovered a new property of the molecular motors that shape our chromosomes. While six years ago they found that these so-called SMC motor proteins make long loops in our DNA, they ...

Before a cell divides, its DNA is replicated so that each daughter cell inherits the same genetic information. The two copies, known as "sister chromatids," are held together by a ring-shaped protein ...

Not all DNA looks like the familiar double helix. Sometimes, parts of our genetic code fold into unusual shapes under certain conditions. One such structure known as a G-quadruplex (G4) looks like a ...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are pluripotent stem cells that can produce all cell types of an organism. ES cells proliferate rapidly and have been thought to experience high levels of intrinsic ...

Every time a cell divides, it must copy its entire genome so that each daughter cell inherits a complete set of DNA. During that process, enzymes known as polymerases race along the DNA to copy its ...

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been a critical turning point for life on Earth. For evolutionary biologists, what most distinguishes the ...

Scientists from the Kavli Institute of Delft University of Technology and the IMP Vienna Biocenter discovered a new property of the molecular motors that shape our chromosomes. While six years ago ...