Evolution's toolkit seen in developing hands and arms

Thousands of sequences that control genes are active in the developing human limb and may have driven the evolution of the human hand and foot, a comparative genomics study led by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found

The TALE of new tools to study gene regulation

In nearly every organism's genome, scattered between genes that encode proteins, long regulatory regions stretch across expanses of DNA. Understanding what role these so-called enhancer regions play in controlling the activation ...

Counting small RNA in disease-causing organisms

Small molecules of RNA (tens to hundreds of nucleotides in length) play a key regulatory role in bacteria. Due to their small size, directly measuring the number of small RNA (sRNA) present in a single bacterium has proven ...

Genetic switches play big role in human evolution

(Phys.org) —A Cornell study offers further proof that the divergence of humans from chimpanzees some 4 million to 6 million years ago was profoundly influenced by mutations to DNA sequences that play roles in turning genes ...

The swing of architect genes

Architect genes are responsible for organizing structures of the body during embryonic development. Some of them, namely the Hox genes, are involved in the formation of forelimbs. They are activated in two successive waves, ...

Wound healing: 'See-saw' switch sends cells on the march

Many genes are transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that provide instructions for protein synthesis. Other genes encode regulatory RNAs known as 'microRNAs', which can block protein translation by binding to specific ...

page 10 from 15