The DNA packed inside every human cell contains instructions for life, written in billions of letters of genetic code. Every time a cell divides, the complete code, divided among 46 chromosomes, must ...

Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have, for the first time, identified the exact location where human chromosomes break and fuse to form Robertsonian chromosomes. The discovery ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

A new article analyzes in depth the physical problems associated with DNA packaging that have often been neglected in structural models of chromosomes. The study demonstrates that the multilaminar ...

Researchers at Cardiff University have uncovered how a particularly severe form of DNA damage arises—shedding new light on ...

A study explains how broken DNA during cell division can trigger chromoanasynthesis when two repair pathways combine, causing ...

A remarkably small bacterium containing fewer than 500 genes serves as the basis for one of the most detailed digital life ...

The central area of chromosomes, the centromere, contains DNA that has survived largely unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years, researchers at UC Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have ...

DNA is a biological molecule that contains the instructions an organism needs to function, develop, and reproduce. It is present in all forms of life on earth and contains each organism’s genetic code ...