The Department of Developmental and Cell Biology seeks discoveries that foster a better understanding of biological questions such as the origins of cancer development, cell repair and regrowth and de...

Low-affinity transcription factor binding sites are functionally important but difficult to map and mechanistically poorly understood. In this issue of Cell Genomics, Weilert et al. leverage sequence-...

Noncoding regulatory elements in the human genome can control gene expression through distinct mechanisms, including acting as enhancers, silencers, or topological elements. However, we lack tools to ...

Mammalian embryos see a substantial increase in available oxygen once the placenta forms. This increase in oxygen exposure serves as a trigger for initiating the development of the hindlimb, thus cont...

This Review discusses how rare-disease-causing variants in the noncoding genome impact gene regulation, why these examples are so few and how new approaches could accelerate discovery of noncoding var...

Development depends on gene regulation by enhancers across long genomic distances. This Perspective discusses mechanisms enabling long-range enhancer–promoter communication and the potential advantage...

Journal club: Judd et al 2026 -- a surprising result about natural selection in recessive genes

Using 4C technology, higher-order topological features of the pluripotent genome are identified; in pluripotent stem cells, Nanog clusters specifically with other pluripotency genes and this clustering is centred around Nanog-binding sites, suggesting that Nanog helps to shape the three-dimensional structure of the pluripotent genome and thereby contributes to the robustness of the pluripotent state.

Super-enhancers have been proposed to cluster in the nucleus when compared to other genomic elements. Le et al. found that super-enhancer clustering was rare and driven by non-specific interactions. P...

Housekeeping genes maintain robust expression across cell types despite dynamic transcription factor fluctuations, yet their haploinsufficiency is associated with many tissue-specific developmental di...

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

Using an in situ genome-rewriting platform, Zhou et al. demonstrate that precise transcriptional regulation of the NMU promoter is governed by a 3D regulatory hub comprising a core retroviral LTR enhancer, a decoy LTR promoter, and activity-boosting “facilitator” elements.

This study contributes a resource of predicted effects of noncoding variants on chromatin accessibility and a method to identify noncoding variants with extreme regulatory effects, with application to...

The 2027 Gordon Research Conference on Developmental Biology will be held in Lucca (Barga), Lucca Italy. Apply today to reserve your spot.

Zhuoxin Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Assistant Professor Evgeny Kvon at the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology at the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences, has been awarde...

Shah, Tortora, et al. show that cells can dial the rate of cohesin loop extrusion by balancing the relative dosage of NIPBL and PDS5. Their models provide a quantitative mechanistic basis for the gene...