Each baby girl starts out with two X chromosomes, but to be healthy she only needs the genes from one. The extra X chromosome gets trussed up and shut down in the earliest stages of development.
Cell & Microbiology
May 13, 2015
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Researchers at Caltech have discovered how an abundant class of RNA genes, called long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs, pronounced link RNAs) can regulate key genes. By studying an important lncRNA, called Xist, the scientists identified ...
Biotechnology
Apr 27, 2015
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Many proteins interact with an RNA molecule called Xist to coat and silence one X chromosome in every female cell. Learning how genes are targeted and silenced may help researchers studying sex-specific diseases.
Biotechnology
Apr 3, 2015
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(Phys.org)—In a paper published in the Nov. 21 issue of Cell, a team led by Mauro Calabrese, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina in the lab of Terry Magnuson, chair of the department of genetics and ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 27, 2012
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When it comes to genes, it’s definitely possible to have too much of a good thing. Accordingly, mammalian females have a mechanism that randomly inactivates one of the two X sex chromosomes within each somatic cell nucleus, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 12, 2010
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Early in development, mammalian female cells counteract their double dose of X chromosomes by coating one of them with a large RNA named XIST. The RNA binds to the same X chromosome from which it is transcribed and initiates ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 24, 2009
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