Meiotic chromosome segregation in mature Drosophila oocytes is sensitive to prolonged quiescence, suggesting that human oocyte instability may result from storage of mature rather than primordial oocytes and be modifiable.
The meiotic DNA recombination landscape is locally influenced by the kinetochore to minimize potentially deleterious pericentromeric crossover recombination.
E3 ubiquitin ligase Bre1-induced H2B monoubiquitination is epigenetically important for recruiting replication factor Mcm10 and cohesion establishment factors Ctf4, Ctf18 and Eco1 to early replication origins to establish sister chromatid cohesion.
Combinatorial expression patterns of δ-Pcdhs are defined within single neurons, and in vitro assays are employed to establish guiding principles used by this gene family to mediate cell adhesion.
The transition to the aggregative stage of Capsaspora owczarzaki, a close unicellular relative to Metazoa, is associated with significant upregulation of orthologs of genes that are important for multicellularity in metazoans.
A genetic screen reveals that two predicted glycosyltransferases promote rosette development and prevent cell clumping in one of the closest living relatives of animals, the choanoflagellate S. rosetta.
An unusual molecular mechanism has been revealed based on ultrastable histidine cluster co-aggregation underlying feedback control of an ancient cell communication pathway.
