Among the many marvels of life is the cell's ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally ...

When bacteria cells replicate, they do so a little differently than human cells do. They don't undergo mitosis, a splitting ...

As the cell proceeds through the stages of cell division (from left to right: interphase, prometaphase, metaphase, and anaphase), chromosomes become progressively more compact through a combination of ...

Scientists have discovered a new property of the molecular motors that shape our chromosomes. While six years ago they found that these so-called SMC motor proteins make long loops in our DNA, they ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have built a computer simulation that tracks the entire life cycle ...

The human genetic blueprint is deceptively simple. Our genes are tightly wound into 46 X-shaped structures called chromosomes. Crafted by evolution, they carry DNA and replicate when cells divide, ...

A simulated cell in the early stages of division. Left half shows membrane (green cubes), and ribosomes (yellow/purple) ...

Scientists have uncovered how brewer’s yeast developed its unusually tiny centromeres, the DNA regions that guide chromosome ...

When a virus infects a bacterial cell, the viral genome is the first component to be fully injected into the cell, making it an ideal immune target. A bacterial enzyme anchored to the membrane ...

Genomic analysis of three Neanderthals shows unusually high modern human DNA on the X chromosome offering clues about ...