Latest Chromosomes Stories

The Agricultural Sciences Network Life-Sciences.net features the latest scientific publications in this discipline. The most recently featured articles deal with characterization of a wild relative of rice and biocontrol of black scurf on potato. (PRWEB) November 09, 2011 The Agricultural Sciences category of the Life-Sciences Magazine covers the cultivation and production of crops, raising of livestock, and postharvest processing of natural products. This section currently contains more...

The histone protein CenH3 is both necessary and sufficient to trigger the formation of centromeres and pass them on from 1 generation to the next Centromeres are specialised regions of the genome, which can be identified under the microscope as the primary constriction in X-shaped chromosomes. The cell skeleton, which distributes the chromosomes to the two daughter cells during cell division, attaches to the centromeres. In most organisms the position of the centromere is not determined by...

Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center have discovered an alternative mechanism for the extension of the telomere repeat sequence by DNA repair enzymes. The ends of the chromosomes, the telomeres, are repetitive DNA sequences that shorten every time a cell divides during the process of duplicating its genome. Once the telomeres become very short the cell stops dividing. Thus, telomeres work like a cellular clock that keeps an eye on the number of cell divisions. And once the...

[ Watch the Video ] A novel study involving fruit flies and mice has allowed biologists to identify two critical genes responsible for congenital heart defects in individuals with Down syndrome, a major cause of infant mortality and death in people born with this genetic disorder. In a paper published in the November 3 issue of the open access journal PLoS Genetics, researchers from UC San Diego, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and the University of...

[ Watch the Video ] After more than a century of study, mysteries still remain about the process of meiosis—a special type of cell division that helps insure genetic diversity in sexually-reproducing organisms. Now, researchers at Stowers Institute for Medical Research shed light on an early and critical step in meiosis. The research, to be published in the Nov. 8, 2011 issue of Current Biology, clarifies the role of key chromosomal regions called centromeres in the formation of a...

NIH-funded study provides insight to the earliest stages of some cancers A novel technique that enables scientists to measure and document tumor-inducing changes in DNA is providing new insight into the earliest events involved in the formation of leukemias, lymphomas and sarcomas, and could potentially lead to the discovery of ways to stop those events. Developed by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and the...

Researchers map where in the genome chromosomes rejoin after breaking; could help guide understanding of cancer genomics and efforts to develop gene therapies BOSTON, Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Immune Disease Institute (IDI) have created a method for mapping "hot spots" in the genome where chromosomes are most likely to break and recombine, knowledge that helps define the rules that govern when and where breaks occur. An...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A chromosomal "catastrophe" that occurs early in development may be to blame for some cases of developmental delay or cognitive disorders, according to new research. Investigators from Baylor College of Medicine analyzed the DNA of 17 patients who were referred to their center because of unexplained developmental problems. "Four were very complex," Dr. Pengfei Liu, a graduate student at BCM, was quoted as saying. "One had 18 rearrangements in one chromosome. It was...

Using a diversity of DNA sequencing and human genome analytic techniques, researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine have identified some cases of developmental delay or cognitive disorders associated with a sudden chromosomal catastrophe that occurred early in development, perhaps during cell division when DNA is replicated. In a report in the journal Cell, Dr. Weimin Bi, assistant professor of molecular and human genetics, Dr. James R.Lupski, vice chair of molecular and human...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A chromosomal "catastrophe" that occurs early in development may be to blame for some cases of developmental delay or cognitive disorders, according to new research. Investigators from Baylor College of Medicine analyzed the DNA of 17 patients who were referred to their center because of unexplained developmental problems. "Four were very complex," Dr. Pengfei Liu, a graduate student at BCM, was quoted as saying. "One had 18 rearrangements in one chromosome. It was...