Symmetry is a fundamental characteristic of most multi-cell animals. However, the cell division of embryonic cells is asymmetric. A team led by Prof. Dr. Esther Zanin at the Department of Biology at ...

Researchers have revealed a surprising new role for a key protein in cell division. The discovery, reported in two back-to-back papers, challenges long-standing models and textbook accounts in biology ...

A simulated cell in the early stages of division. Left half shows membrane (green cubes), and ribosomes (yellow/purple) interwoven through in the cell’s chromosome (red). Right side shows all the ...

A metabolic enzyme also binds and unwinds RNA to promote translation of cell cycle genes. This dual role links energy status ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have built a computer simulation that tracks the entire life cycle ...

Trying to hit a target size before dividing seems like the best strategy for maintaining a precise cell size, but bacteria don't do that. Now we know why. When a single bacterial cell divides into two ...

The story of the cell cycle is often told only through the perspective of the chromosomes as they replicate and then divide. This resource beautifully illustrates the role of the cytoskeleton in that ...

Researchers discovered that a long-misunderstood protein plays a key role in helping chromosomes latch onto the right “tracks” during cell division. Instead of acting like a motor, it works more like ...

If the model is wrong, however, and it's the accumulation of protein from birth that determines when the cells will divide, then cells of dissimilar size at birth would divide at different times, and ...