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Fiona M. Watt at King’s College London Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (UK) discusses how gender balance in the scientific community is evolving.
The spindle checkpoint complex BUB3–BUB1 facilitates telomere replication through recruitment of the helicase BLM, and the telomere capping protein TRF2 promotes replication at pericentromeres by recruiting the helicase RTEL1; both helicases resolve G-quadruplex structures.
Kikuë Tachibana discusses some of the key findings of the seminal works of Sir John Gurdon on nuclear reprogramming and how, by being examples of scientific rigour, they have inspired her own research.
Transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) family cytokines are important regulators of cell fate with pleiotropic roles in development, tissue homeostasis, regeneration and tumorigenesis. Recent studies revealed that this context dependency relies on the convergence between TGFβ signals and other contextual inputs, whereby transcription factors downstream of these pathways collaboratively act to regulate gene expression.
The maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT) is defined as the transition from maternal gene expression in the oocyte to zygotic genome activation and embryonic-driven development. Recent studies have improved our understanding of the dynamics of the MZT, which is characterized by global DNA demethylation, chromatin remodelling, genome reorganization and substantial transcriptional changes.
Microtubules are highly dynamic tubulin polymers, and their dynamics are associated with a conformational cycle of individual tubulin subunits in the lattice. Recent evidence suggests that fine-tuning microtubule dynamics is enabled by the allosteric coupling of tubulin subunits, which propagates conformational changes through the lattice.
Transcription elongation by RNA polymerase II (Pol II) involves pausing of Pol II at promoter-proximal regions. Pol II release into gene bodies (productive elongation) is controlled by many transcription-specific factors, enhancers and factors that are canonically associated with genome maintenance.
