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 ...

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 ...

One of the most detailed 3D maps of how the human chromosomes are organized and folded within a cell's nucleus is published in Nature. Chromosomes are thread-like structures that carry a cell's ...

Among the many marvels of life is the cell's ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally ...

DNA's iconic double helix does more than "just" store genetic information. Under certain conditions, it can temporarily fold ...

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 ...

For almost 60 years, scientists have tried to understand why DNA doesn't replicate wildly and uncontrollably every time a ...

DNA's iconic double helix does more than "just" store genetic information. Under certain conditions it can temporarily fold into unusual shapes. Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have now shown ...

The illustration shows DNA being folded into a loop by an SMC motor called cohesin (in purple/blue). The purple part of the motor (with a red/green label) is the protein subunit NIPBL, which acts as a ...

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 ...