For sexual reproduction to yield healthy offspring, newly generated oocytes—immature egg cells—must receive the correct amount of DNA after cell division. This process of segregating chromosomes ...

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 ...

Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) reveal that metabolic enzymes known for their roles in energy production and nucleotide synthesis are taking on unexpected "second jobs" within ...

If measured from beginning to end, the DNA in our cells is too long to fit into the cell’s nucleus, explaining why it must be constantly folded and packaged. When it is time for cell division, and the ...

Mitosis is the stage of the eukaryotic cell cycle during which a single cell divides to produce two genetically identical daughter cells, ensuring proper growth, tissue repair and renewal, and ...

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 ...

MIT researchers discovered that the genome’s 3D structure doesn’t vanish during cell division as previously thought. Instead, tiny loops called microcompartments remain (and even strengthen) while ...

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center and the University of Oxford have found that a cellular housekeeping function called autophagy—by which cell components are broken down and recycled—plays a ...

For almost 60 years, scientists have tried to understand why DNA doesn’t replicate wildly and uncontrollably every time a cell divides – which they need to do constantly. Without this process, we ...

For successful cell division, chromosomal DNA needs to be packed into compact rod-shaped structures. Defects in this process can lead to cell death or diseases like cancer. A new study has shown how ...