Chromosomes are thread-like structures located inside the nucleus of animal and plant cells. Each chromosome is made of protein and a single molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Passed from ...

Researchers have made a surprising new discovery in the structure of the centromere, a structure that is involved in ensuring that chromosomes are segregated properly when a cell divides. Mistakes in ...

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 ...

For decades, the Y chromosome — one of the two human sex chromosomes — has been notoriously challenging for the genomics community to sequence due to the complexity of its structure. Now, this elusive ...

One of the challenges of working with ancient DNA samples is that damage accumulates over time, breaking up the structure of the double helix into ever smaller fragments. In the samples we've worked ...

MIT researchers discovered that the genome’s 3D structure doesn’t vanish during cell division as previously thought. Instead, ...

“Our work is the first to directly test how chromosome structure affects bacterial growth, survival, and ability to cause ...

Before cells can divide, they first need to replicate all of their chromosomes, so that each of the daughter cells can ...