An organism grows and repairs its body using a form of cell division known as mitosis. To divide, a cell must replicate the chromosomes, which carry the DNA (the instructions needed to build the body) ...

If you took high school biology, you probably learned about cell division: a crucial process in all life forms officially called mitosis. For over one hundred years, students have learned that during ...

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 ...

Before cells can divide by mitosis, they first need to replicate all of their chromosomes, so that each of the daughter cells can receive a full set of genetic material. Scientists have until now ...

A prevailing belief that the 3D structure of DNA disappears completely when cells divide has been overturned. Rather than DNA fully unwinding into a flat configuration, some regions of chromosomes ...

It's long been assumed that when a parent cell divides into two daughter cells, the parent assumes a spherical shape, which then splits into two cells that have roughly the same, round size. But a new ...

Our DNA is constantly being packed and unpacked. And there is a good reason for this: depending on its packing state, it performs different functions in the cell nucleus. For most of its life – this ...

Figure 1: A fluorescence light micrograph of breast cancer cell about to divide into two. Chromosomes are stained blue, while the pink dots are kinetochores. RIKEN researchers have demonstrated ...

Symmetry is a fundamental characteristic of most multi-cell animals. However, the cell division of embryonic cells is asymmetric. A team led by Prof. Dr. Esther Zanin at the Department of Biology at ...

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 ...