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 ...

Novel histone modifications couple metabolism to gene activity

Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (LMU) have discovered that two new classes of histone modifications couple cellular metabolism to gene activity. The study was published ...

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.

Histone 1, the guardian of genome stability

Scientists headed by Ferran Azorín at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) have discovered why histone 1 is a major protection factor against genomic instability and a vital protein. Their study of the ...

'Acidic patch' regulates access to genetic information

Chromatin remodelers—protein machines that pack and unpack chromatin, the tightly wound DNA-protein complex in cell nuclei—are essential and powerful regulators for critical cellular processes, such as replication, recombination ...

Origins of DNA folding suggested in archaea

In the cells of palm trees, humans, and some single-celled microorganisms, DNA gets bent the same way. Now, by studying the 3-D structure of proteins bound to DNA in microbes called Archaea, University of Colorado Boulder ...

Preserving the active chromatin state

If cellular identity is to be maintained, it is important that actively transcribed chromatin stretches remain in a loose configuration as long as these genes are needed. Marc Bühler and his group have uncovered a novel ...

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