A synthetic cell can now grow and divide—but it’s still far from alive

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41594-026-01810-xThe authors show that Rap1 protein coverage protects telomeres by physically blocking the Mre11–Rad50–Xrs2NBS1 complex. Longer, denser Rap1 arrays better prevent DNA damage responses, providing a mechanism for how cells detect short telomeres and maintain genome stability

Institutionen för molekylär biovetenskap, Wenner-Grens institut (MBW) bedriver experimentell grundforskning inom molekylär cellbiologi, integrativ biologi och infektions- och immunbiologi. Forsknin

Bacteria often survive viral attack and environmental stress by sharing genes that enhance their defenses. The cholera pathogen Vibrio cholerae carries a sedentary chromosomal integron (SCI), a genetic element containing hundreds of mostly promoterless ...

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Analysis of data from pre-implantation genetic testing sheds light on the genetic basis of meiotic-origin aneuploidy, the leading cause of human pregnancy loss, identifying common genetic variants ass...

Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in multiple ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

During eukaryotic transcription, Pol II must overcome nucleosome obstacles and, because of DNA’s helical structure, must also rotate relative to DNA, generating torsional stress. However, there is lim...

BOSTON – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. (Dana-Farber) has agreed to pay $15 million to resolve allegations that, between 2014 and 2024, it made materially false statements and certifications relat...

Xu et al. reveal that the Ppl defense system protects bacteria from phages by acting as a “double-check” security system. It requires two simultaneous phage-induced stresses to activate, a sophisticated mechanism that ensures effective immunity while preventing premature abortive infection.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 01 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01703-5Vidmar et al. use cryo-EM to reveal how bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) and topoisomerase I (TopoI) cooperate. TopoI switches conformation, senses DNA supercoils near RNAP and relaxes them. Mutations disrupting this process alter bacterial motility and operon polarity.

SMC complexes are ring-shaped motors that fold DNA by extruding loops, but how they navigate large DNA obstacles is unclear. Here, Liu et al., show that SMC complexes bypass obstacles by threading obs...

SMC complexes are ring-shaped motors that fold DNA by extruding loops, but how they navigate large DNA obstacles is unclear. Here, Liu et al., show that SMC complexes bypass obstacles by threading obs...

Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

Condensins are conserved proteins containing SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) moieties that organize and compact chromosomes in an unknown mechanism essential for faithful chromosome partitioning. We show that MukBEF, the condensin in Escherichia coli, cooperatively compacts a single DNA …

Structural maintenance of chromosome (SMC) complexes organize and segregate DNA via loop extrusion, but the mechanism of the initial DNA loading was unclear. In this issue of Molecular Cell, Roisné-Ha...

A renewed interest in bacteriophages has emerged from the explosive discovery of the complex pan-immune bacterial defense system and a revival of t...

Wadjet is an SMC-based prokaryotic defense system that eliminates plasmid DNA. Roisné-Hamelin et al. present structures capturing key steps of its DNA-loading mechanism. This work reveals how Wadjet topologically entraps DNA by SMC dimer rotation around DNA and defines the starting point of loop extrusion by the SMC motor.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 14 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01677-4Li et al. show that a Lamassu defense system protects bacteria from phage infection by activating a lethal tetrameric DNA-cutting enzyme. In the absence of phages, a protein clamp holds the enzyme as an inactive monomer, preventing self-damage.

Bacterial ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters can be utilized and engineered to transport non-canonical amino acids into Escherichia coli for highly efficient synthesis of proteins with novel func...