Transgenic mice with high levels of FGF21 live for longer than wild-type mice and do so without reducing food intake.

A 2-year field study has demonstrated that volatile compounds produced by plants when they are attacked by herbivores act as defenses by attracting predators to the herbivores and increasing the reproduction of the plants.

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.

Genome-wide measurements on mouse liver cells show that transcription, and a particular key transcription factor, have a smaller than expected influence on the mouse circadian system.

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.

A genome-organizing protein that is present only in the olfactory system of mice has been found to orchestrate changes in the relative numbers of different odor-sensing neurons on the basis of how active these neurons are.

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.

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.