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Laurent Blanchoin reminds us of a seminal paper by Tom Pollard reporting the meticulous measurement of rate constants of actin assembly, and highlights its contribution to quantitative understanding of actin filament dynamics as well as its impact on his own research interests.
It turns out that Meselson and Stahl were not the first to show that DNA replicates semi-conservatively. The preceding experiment was almost forgotten, partly because it showed something incredible.
Galluzzi and Kroemer take advantage of a large study of somatic copy number alterations to revisit the previously suggested idea that cancer aneuploidy frequently arises from genome duplication.
As far as James Haber is concerned, the big picture is all he wants of protein structures. This was not the case, however, with the structure of RecA, published in 2008.
Recognition of the innovative nature of the Beadle and Tatum experiment of mutation induction followed by selection has faded in the decades since; Bernard Strauss explains why.
Lynne Maquat reminds us that almost 20 years before the discovery of microRNAs, an antisense regulatory RNA was identified in embryonic chick muscle cells.
Azim Surani discusses how induced pluripotent stem cells have enabled researchers to demonstrate that it is possible to cross the germ line–soma barrier, known as the Weismann barrier.
M. Bishr Omary reminds us of the three articles that first uncovered a causative link between mutations in intermediate filaments (specifically, keratin 14) and human diseases.
A prophetic theoretical article, which hypothesized that ribosomes have regulatory roles in controlling gene expression, inspired Maria Barna to rethink the value of purely theoretical scientific publications.
Ronald and Joan Conaway highlight studies that established the role of phosphorylation of the RNA polymerase II carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) in the transition from transcription initiation to elongation, which paved the ground for following work on the CTD in regulating co-transcriptional processes.
Robert Grosse discusses how optogenetic strategies have the potential to advance our understanding of protein function and localization in individual living cells.
Stephen J. Royle describes a cutting-edge study that provided definitive evidence for the first time that the kinetochore fibre is a bundle of parallel microtubules.
Michael Rape provides a striking example of how basic research — in this case in the plant sciences — can be unexpectedly informative for drug development.
