Ready, go!

Just like orchestra musicians waiting for their cue, RNA polymerase II molecules are poised at the start site of many developmentally controlled genes, waiting for the "Go!"- signal to read their part of the genomic symphony. ...

Physicists tease out twisted torques of DNA

Like an impossibly twisted telephone cord, DNA, the molecule that encodes genetic information, also often finds itself twisted into coils. This twisting, called supercoiling, is caused by enzymes that travel along DNA's helical ...

Hitting reset to start a new embryo

New work by scientists in the U.S. and China shows how a fertilized egg cell, or zygote, hits "reset" so that the newly formed embryo can develop according to its own genetic program. The study was published July 17 in Nature.

page 3 from 13