Among the many marvels of life is the cell's ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally ...

As the cell proceeds through the stages of cell division (from left to right: interphase, prometaphase, metaphase, and anaphase), chromosomes become progressively more compact through a combination of ...

The organization of DNA packaged in chromosomes during cell division has been very difficult to study experimentally. Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have found that the ...

Robertsonian chromosomes are large chromosomes that form when the long arm of a chromosome breaks and fuses with another chromosome. They are the most common type of chromosome rearrangement in humans ...

Fresh insights into the structures that contain our genetic material could explain how the body's cells stay healthy. A protective barrier formed inside each of our chromosomes helps to prevent errors ...

Neil Hunter's laboratory in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences has placed another piece in the puzzle of how sexual reproduction shuffles genes while making sure sperm and eggs get the right ...

For sexual reproduction to yield healthy offspring, newly generated oocytes—immature egg cells—must receive the correct amount of DNA after cell division. This process of segregating chromosomes ...

Scientists have finally uncovered the exact DNA sequence where human chromosomes fuse to form Robertsonian chromosomes, a mystery that has puzzled researchers for over a century. Using advanced genome ...

Robertsonian chromosomes (ROB) are a type of structurally variant chromosome that is created when two chromosomes fuse together to form an unusual bond. Found commonly in nature, these chromosomes are ...