DNA is often described as the instruction manual for building the fundamental components of life. Proteins are helpers that aid DNA in carrying out essential processes such as replication, repair, and ...

Researchers have discovered how cells activate a last-resort DNA repair system when severe damage strikes. When genetic tangles overwhelm normal repair pathways, cells flip on a fast but error-prone ...

DNA can sustain serious injuries called double strand breaks, in which both strands of the helix snap. These breaks are among the most dangerous forms of DNA damage and immediately trigger the cell's ...

Scientists have created a live-cell DNA sensor that reveals how damage appears and disappears inside living cells, capturing the entire repair sequence as it unfolds. Instead of freezing cells at ...

A new fluorescent sensor is giving scientists an unprecedented view of how cells respond to DNA damage, capturing the repair process as it unfolds in real time. The tool, developed at Utrecht ...

“The laws of inheritance are quite unknown,” Charles Darwin acknowledged in 1859. The discovery of DNA’s shape altered how we conceived of life itself. The X-ray crystallography by Rosalind Franklin ...

Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) live year-round in the icy or near-icy waters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Although they migrate with the seasonal cycles of ice formation and melting, they never ...

Using comparative molecular biology with human cGAS – which actually inhibits DNA repair – the scientists found that the naked mole-rat's enzyme has four key changes that facilitate the important work ...

The secret to the naked mole-rats’ extraordinarily long life may lie in subtle changes to just four amino acids, researchers report. According to a new study, evolutionary mutations in cGAS – an ...

A clump of proteins seems to be in charge of the level of DNA repair that takes place in our bodies, determining how fast mutations accumulate in our cells over a lifetime – and might thus affect our ...

Gene editing has made huge leaps in recent years, such as treating the congenital blood disorders sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia, which can require lifelong blood transfusions. But scientists ...

Targeted DNA editing by CRISPR technology has great potential for applications in biotechnology and gene therapy. However, precise gene editing remains a challenge largely due to insufficient control ...