Lipid droplets play crucial roles beyond fat storage

Lipid droplets: they were long thought of merely as the formless blobs of fat out of which spare tires and muffin tops were made. But these days, they're "a really hot area of research," says Michael Welte, professor and ...

Chromosome centromeres are inherited epigenetically

Centromeres are specialised regions of the genome, which can be identified under the microscope as the primary constriction in X-shaped chromosomes. The cell skeleton, which distributes the chromosomes to the two daughter ...

Key factor identified in gene silencing

A fertilized human egg develops into multiple tissues, organs and about 200 distinct cell types. Each cell type has the same genes, but they are expressed differently during development and in mature cells.

How epigenetic switches control gene expression

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology have deciphered how to quantitatively assess the effects of specific epigenetic changes on the rate of transcription by developing a mathematical model. Using their method, they ...

Packaging process for genes discovered

Scientists at Penn State University have achieved a major milestone in the attempt to assemble, in a test tube, entire chromosomes from their component parts. The achievement reveals the process a cell uses to package the ...

On the trail of the epigenetic code

The genetic inherited material DNA was long viewed as the sole bearer of hereditary information. The function of its packaging proteins, the histones, was believed to be exclusively structural. Additional genetic information ...

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