A family of homing genetic elements that look like inteins but work differently is the progenitor of the endonuclease that enables Saccharomyces cerevisiae to change its mating type.
Structural, biophysical and physiological analysis reveals how yeast cell surface adhesins evolved to confer self-nonself discrimination in single cells and whole populations.
The Cohesin subunit Scc3 contains a hook-shaped domain that binds to DNA substrate, thus revealing that Cohesin-chromatin transactions are driven not only by topological interactions, but also by direct protein-DNA contacts.
