A pattern recognition receptor called toll-like receptor 13 detects pathogens in a manner that is different to that seen in other pathogen sensors.

Electron microscopy has been used to produce the first three-dimensional image of the PRC2 gene-silencing complex.

The transcription machinery used to regulate gene expression and self-renewal in human embryonic stem cells is different from that found in other cells.

A chromatin boundary factor that is only active during early embryo development has been discovered in Drosophila.

Structural and functional studies of a potassium ion channel that is opened and closed by different ligands have revealed a novel gating mechanism.

Similarities in the way that nucleosomes are organized into chromatin in archaea and eukaryotes suggest that chromatin might have been involved in gene regulation before its role in DNA packaging evolved.

A combination of molecular dynamics simulations and X-ray diffraction data has been used to construct more realistic models of proteins and to provide new insights into their interactions with other proteins and biomolecules.

A protein that can recognize regions of DNA with a high proportion of unmethylated CpG dinucleotides, and then recruit polycomb group proteins to these CpG islands, has been identified.

Preventing premature interactions between microtubules and protein-based structures called kinetochores ensures that chromosomes are segregated by meiosis rather than mitosis in reproductive cells.

Experiments in mice have shown than an enzyme that repairs broken DNA inside the nucleus also has a central role in the innate immune system because it is able to detect foreign DNA outside the nucleus.