A study uncovers the 'grammar' behind human gene regulation

A research group at the University of Helsinki has discovered the logic that controls gene regulation in human cells. In the future, this new knowledge could be used for investigating cancers and other genetic diseases.

Speeding up evolution: Orchid epigenetics

Organisms adapt to their dynamic environment using various strategies. Ovidiu Paun, working at the Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, investigates how marsh orchids adjust to and diffuse in different habitats. ...

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 ...

We're all mammals – so why do we look so different?

It is easy to distinguish a mouse from a cow. But for members of the same class of mammal, where do such differences begin? In 2011, scientists discovered there were differences in cow and mice blastocysts, the tiny hollow ...

Similar genetic elements underlie vocal learning in mammals

The vocalizations of humans, bats, whales, seals and songbirds vastly differ from each other. Humans and birds, for example, are separated by some 300 million years of evolution. But scientists studying how these animals ...

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

Algorithm reveals complex protein dynamics behind gene expression

(Phys.org) —In yet another coup for a research concept known as "big data," researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a computerized algorithm to understand the complex and rapid choreography ...

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, ...

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