Ganji M et al., and Fudenberg G et al., postulated that the SMC family of ATPases, such as condensin and cohesion, extrude DNA into large loops. Energy from ATP hydrolysis helps the SMC proteins to ...

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 ...

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 ...

A living cell is able to neatly package a big jumble of DNA into chromosomes while preparing for cell division. For over a century, scientists have been puzzled for decades on how the process works.

A team of Chinese scientists has uncovered a hidden 3D structure in rice DNA that allows the crop to grow more grain while using less nitrogen fertilizer. The finding, published in Nature Genetics by ...

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 ...

When people think of DNA, they visualize a string-like double helix structure. In reality, the DNA double helix in cells is supercoiled and constrained into loops. This supercoiling and looping are ...

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 ...

Because I find it hard to relate to something as small as the structure of the human genome, I like to imagine it scaled up a millionfold. At this size, each DNA molecule—a chromosome—is as wide as 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. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates.