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 ...

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 ...

The DNA packed inside every human cell contains instructions for life, written in billions of letters of genetic code. Every time a cell divides, the complete code, divided among 46 chromosomes, must ...

A new article analyzes in depth the physical problems associated with DNA packaging that have often been neglected in structural models of chromosomes. The study demonstrates that the multilaminar ...

Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) and collaborators have uncovered one of the earliest steps in DNA replication: the moment a cell first opens its DNA to begin making a copy ...

The human genetic blueprint is deceptively simple. Our genes are tightly wound into 46 X-shaped structures called chromosomes. Crafted by evolution, they carry DNA and replicate when cells divide, ...

It's tricky to make an exact copy of yourself. Or at least it is for cells undergoing mitosis, where cells replicate everything inside of them, including their neatly packaged DNA, then split in half.

Cells have evolved careful checks to ensure DNA is copied only once, but how they switch on replication at the right moment has been the focus of a 30-year research question. New work from the Crick ...

Small, cancer-associated DNA circles "hitchhike" on chromosomes during cell division to spread efficiently to daughter cells by co-opting a process used to maintain cellular identity through ...