If chromosomes snuggle up too closely at the wrong times, the results can be genetic disaster.

A multinational group of investigators has discovered that people suffering from schizophrenia are far more likely to carry rare chromosomal structural changes of all types, particularly those that have the potential to alter gene function.

European researchers have made significant progress unravelling how genes are governed and why this sometimes goes wrong in disease. The key lies in the dynamic ever-changing structure of the chromatin, which is the underlying complex of protein and DNA making up the chromosomes in which almost all genes are housed within the genome.

The normal human genome contains 46 chromosomes: 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. Thus, you have two copies of every gene (excluding some irregularity in the pair of sex chromosomes). In general, which parent contributes a chromosome has no effect on the expression of the genes found on it.

Cell division is essential to life, but the mechanism by which emerging daughter cells organize and divvy up their genetic endowments is little understood. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois and Columbia University report on how a key motor protein orchestrates chromosome movements at a critical stage of cell division.

A team of scientists has provided, for the first time, a detailed map of how the building blocks of chromosomes, the cellular structures that contain genes, are organized in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The Stowers Institute's Workman Lab has shed new light on a novel histone acetyltransferase protein complex called ATAC. Acetyltransferases are enzymes that introduce a new acetyl functional group into histone proteins, a process by which all chromosome functions are controlled.

Ten years ago, researchers at the IMP - a basic research institute in Vienna - discovered a fundamental and amazingly plausible mechanism of cell division. They identified a protein complex, which, as a ring-shaped molecule, slides over the doubled chromosomes and holds precisely these together until the time they again separate.

Crossovers and double-strand DNA breaks do not occur randomly on yeast chromosomes during meiosis, but are greatly influenced by the proximity of the chromosome’s telomere, according to research in the laboratory of Whitehead Fellow Andreas Hochwagen.

There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work.

A new method of constructing artificial plant chromosomes from small rings of naturally occurring plant DNA can be used to transport multiple genes at once into embryonic plants where they are expressed, duplicated as plant cells divide, and passed on to the next generation -- a long-term goal for those interested in improving agricultural productivity.

Researchers at the University of Rochester believe they have just confirmed a controversial theory of evolution. The X chromosome is a strikingly powerful force in the origin of new species.