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A new study adds to our understanding of the interconnection between different nuclear processes by showing that a 'classical' metazoan precursor mRNA–processing factor functions to prevent transcription-associated genomic instability.
Biochemical and genetic data defining the assembly pathway and structural biology of the T4 tail apparatus are merging to create a four-dimensional image reconstruction. Human inventions seem to be large-scale replicas of molecular devices honed by evolution.
Two recent studies address how chromatin-remodeling enzymes alter nucleosomes and suggest that they anchor on the particle while translocating on the nucleosomal DNA.
DNA helicases unwind DNA by a number of mechanisms in which conformational change seems to be of central importance. Characterization of two β-hairpins and fluorescence resonance energy transfer studies of protein-DNA interactions in the minichromosome maintenance proteins afford new insights into the molecular mechanisms of these proteins.