New insights into how cells duplicate their DNA
Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 10:30
in Biology & Nature
Scientists have discovered new insights into how cells duplicate their DNA. They used an imaging method known as cryo-electron microscopy to take extremely high resolution images of how the right proteins come together at the right point on the DNA strands, forming a structure called an "origin recognition complex" (ORC). The lab's first-of-a-kind images (taken using yeast cells, which are also eukaryotes), showed how the shape of the complex changes as it sets the DNA up for duplication.