A gene contained in laboratory yeast has helped an international team of researchers uncover new findings about the process by which protein molecules bind to control sequences in genes in order to initiate gene expression, according to findings reported in the journal Nature.

The latest breakthrough in a 120 year-old debate on the evolution of the bird wing was published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, October 3, by Alexander Vargas and colleagues at Yale University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

MicroRNAs, the tiny molecules that fine-tune gene expression, were first discovered in 1993. But it turns out they've been around for a billion years.

The Stowers Institute’s Conaway Lab has demonstrated that an enzyme called Uch37 is kept in check when it is part of a human chromatin remodeling complex, INO80. The results were published in today’s issue of Molecular Cell.

An effort to detect patterns of chemical changes in histones and their impact on gene expression

A University of Michigan study reveals in detail how breast cells produce new cells that are predisposed to become cancerous, unless they receive the protective action of the CHFR gene.

Gene-expression data from liver tissue or whole blood can be used to classify histopathologic differences in the effects of hepatotoxins. It is hoped that these findings, published in BioMed Central's open access journal, Genome Biology, will lead to a more precise way of defining the potential hepatotoxicity of new compounds.

RNA is best known as a working copy of the DNA sequence of genes. In this role, it’s a carrier of the genes’ instructions to the cell, which manufactures proteins according to information in the RNA molecule.

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.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have gained the first detailed insight into the way circadian rhythms govern global gene expression in Cyanothece, a type of cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) known to cycle between photosynthesis during the day and nitrogen fixation at night.

Enzymes regulating genetic expression can be just as important as the genome itself, increasing evidence shows. The expanding field of epigenetics focuses on the multiple influences on DNA and surrounding molecules that determine whether genes are turned on or off during development and disease processes.

The nature vs. nurture debate is familiar to most people, and modern conclusions usually predict a balance between the two. A new paper published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology shows that there is a similar balance between the genes we inherit—nature—and the environment—nurture—in determining thousands of traits in yeast.