In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma ...

Genetics tools have advanced significantly in recent decades, and have allowed scientist to sequence all of the genetic ...

Humans and baker's yeast have more in common than meets the eye, including an important mechanism that helps ensure DNA is copied correctly, reports a pair of studies. The findings visualize for the ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

DNA replication is a fundamental process essential for bacterial growth and survival. Initiation begins at the chromosomal origin (oriC), where the conserved initiator protein DnaA assembles into an ...

Researchers identified how the poxvirus protein VITF-3 forms a molecular ring that clamps onto DNA with viral RNA polymerase, bending it by 90 degrees to initiate gene copying.

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been a critical turning point for life on Earth. For evolutionary biologists, what most distinguishes the ...

In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass," Alice is stuck in a never-ending race with the Red Queen yet never gains a lead. "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place," the ...

DNA replication is a complex process with many moving parts. In baker's yeast, the molecular complex Ctf18-RFC keeps parts of the replication machinery from falling off the DNA strand. Human cells use ...