Experiments on E. coli show that multiple mechanisms contribute to extreme resistance to ionizing radiation in bacteria, with mutations to three genes for DNA repair having a prominent role in one evolved population.

The role of the bacterial protein RadA in homologous recombination – a DNA repair pathway vital to all cells – is defined.

A structural investigation reveals details of the mechanism by which the nuclease RecJ processes DNA ends to repair double strand breaks.

DNA unwinding triggers a conformational change in the RecD subunit of E. coli RecBCD helicase-nuclease that is transferred through the RecC subunit to activate the nuclease domain of the RecB subunit.

Molecular insights to phytochrome activation and signal transduction over long distances enable the allosteric regulation of enzymatic effectors.

Kasugamycin potentiates rifampicin killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by targeting adaptive mistranslation.

Random sequence RNA pools display an innate capacity for ligation and recombination, enabling them to “bootstrap” themselves towards higher compositional, informational and structural complexity.

Nramp-family transporters adapt a common fold to a novel mechanism in which the spatial and temporal separation of like-charge transition metal and proton co-substrates circumvents the expected electrostatic repulsion.

The structural and mechanistic characterization of competitive inhibition of human DMT1 offers a promising route for the development of compounds for the treatment of iron overload disorders.