Cell division is an essential process for all life on Earth, yet the exact mechanisms by which cells divide during early embryonic development have remained elusive—particularly for egg-laying species ...

Researchers discovered that a long-misunderstood protein plays a key role in helping chromosomes latch onto the right “tracks” during cell division. Instead of acting like a motor, it works more like ...

DNA does not float freely in the cell. Instead, it is wrapped around histone proteins to form structures called nucleosomes.

Scientists have uncovered a surprising new way that giant embryonic cells divide—without relying on the classic “purse-string” ring long thought essential for splitting a cell in two. Studying ...

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 ...

Before a cell can divide, it has to precisely duplicate its entire genetic information. However, the DNA in the cell exists as part of a DNA-protein complex known as chromatin. For this purpose, the ...

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 ...

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center have found that a cellular housekeeping mechanism called autophagy plays a major role in ensuring that T stem cells undergo normal cell division. The findings, ...

When a cell divides, it performs a feat of microscopic choreography—duplicating its DNA and depositing it into two new cells. The spindle is the machinery behind that process: It latches onto ...

Scientists at the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) in Zagreb, Croatia, have discovered that the protein CENP-E, long believed to act as a motor dragging chromosomes into place during cell division, in ...