Technological advances over the past decade have enabled genome-wide mapping of chromatin organization across diverse organisms at unprecedented resolution. These studies have uncovered both conserve…

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 08 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-01004-7Programmed DNA elimination is a developmentally regulated process in which specific DNA sequences are reproducibly removed from particular cell lineages. Here, the authors review the mechanistic diversity and evolutionary dynamics of DNA elimination, spanning chromosome breakage, whole-chromosome elimination and whole-genome elimination.

Inside cells, DNA is intimately associated with proteins, forming chromatin. The protein constituents of chromatin vary across the tree of life: histones are the principal building blocks of chromatin...

Experiments in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis show a role of gene body methylation in transposable element suppression and that epigenetic inheritance is constrained by chromatin context and tra...

Abstract. Prokaryotes and eukaryotes use diverse strategies to cope with invading mobile genetic elements, including programmed DNA elimination (PDE). In t

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology - A study that showed that programmed DNA elimination in somatic genomes of ciliates involves excision of intrusive, transposon-derived sequences from genes.

Long-read sequencing in 18 unicellular eukaryotes reveals that 6mA is widespread across eukaryotes and is enriched at transcriptionally permissive regions, which are also marked by H3K4me3.

Background. Paramecia belong to the ciliate phylum of unicellular eukaryotes characterized by nuclear dimorphism. A diploid germline micronucleus (MIC) transmits genetic information across sexual gene...

In ciliates, an ancestral pathway for transposable element repression by small RNAs and histone methyltransferases has evolved into a highly orchestrated process to eliminate unwanted sequences from ...

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes use diverse strategies to cope with invading mobile genetic elements, including programmed DNA elimination (PDE). In the ciliate Paramecium , elimination of transposable ele...

Abstract. To limit transposable element (TE) mobilization, most eukaryotes have evolved small RNAs to silence TE activity via homology-dependent mechanisms

Chromatin is the complex of DNA, RNA and protein that is found making up the chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. Chromatin is essential for proper genome function and is involved in chromosome segregati…

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 17 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01584-8The authors reveal that, in fruit fly ovaries, the protein Rhino is guided to specific regions of the genome by a combination of two histone modifications, enhancing understanding of how cells protect their DNA from harmful virus-like elements.

It is commonly assumed that multicellular organisms contain the same genetic information in all the cells of an individual. However, there is a growing list of species in which parts of the genome are...