Antoine Peters and his group at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) have elucidated the mechanisms controlling the packaging of chromatin in the early embryo. They have ...

Although many people are aware that chromosomal damage and shortening contribute to the aging process, understanding how chromosomal defects occur is about more than just finding a way to turn back ...

To fit the two-meter long DNA molecule into a cell nucleus that is only a few thousandths of a millimetre in size, long sections of the DNA must be strongly compacted. Epigenetic marks maintain these ...

"Junk DNA" is what biologists used to call heterochromatin, the highly repetitive, gene-poor DNA concentrated near the centromeres and telomeres of chromosomes. With the publication of version 5.1 of ...

The same mechanisms that quickly separate mixtures of oil and water are at play when controlling the organization in an unusual part of our DNA called heterochromatin, according to a new study by ...

Prof. Liu Guanghui and his colleagues from the Institute of Zoology and the Beijing Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have collaborated to find that Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ...

A team led by researchers at Osaka University finds that extra-tight packaging of genomic material helps prevent large chromosomal rearrangements that can lead to cancer Although many people are aware ...

A recent study In Press at the Journal of Cell Biology reports that herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) exploits heterochromatin to successfully exit the nucleus. The heterochromatin markers macroH2A1 and ...

Chromatin consists of the DNA molecule and numerous proteins, including histones, which act as packaging proteins. In contrast to the easily accessible euchromatin, which contains the majority of ...

This press release is available in German. To fit the two-meter long DNA molecule into a cell nucleus that is only a few thousandths of a millimetre in size, long sections of the DNA must be strongly ...