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DNA damage resulting in multiple broken chromosomes. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0 A multidisciplinary team of Indiana University researchers have discovered that the motion of chromatin, the material that DNA is made of, can help facilitate effective repair of DNA damage in the human nucleus—a finding that could lead to improved cancer diagnosis and treatment. Their findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DNA damage happens naturally in human body and most of the damage can be repaired by the cell itself. However, unsuccessful repair could lead to cancer. "DNA in the nucleus is always...

Previously, fields such as biochemistry operated under the assumption that chromatin and other elements of the nucleus operated in a liquid state... This new understanding of the physical properties of chromatin challenges that idea, and could lead to a more accurate understanding of how the genome is encoded and decoded. All of our chromosomes are made from chromatin, which is half histone (or structural) proteins and half DNA, organized into long strings with bead-like structures (nucleosomes) on them. Inside the nucleus of a cell, the chromatin fiber interacts with itself to condense into a chromosome. The chromatin fiber also supports...

Thousand of epigenetic switches in the liver control whether genes turn on or off in response to circadian cycles. The figure illustrates daily changes, every six hours, in five different...When it's dark, and we start to fall asleep, most of us think we're tired because our bodies need rest. Yet circadian rhythms affect our bodies not just on a global scale, but at the level of individual organs, and even genes. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have determined the specific genetic switches that sync liver activity to the circadian cycle. Their finding gives further insight into the mechanisms behind...