Cytosine News and Research

RSS

Ambiguous Stop Codons Expand the Genetic Code in Archaea

The beauty of the DNA code is that organisms interpret it unambiguously. Each three-letter nucleotide sequence, or codon, in a gene codes for a unique amino acid that's added to a chain of amino acids to make a protein.

2 Dec 2025

Novel Mechanism for Epigenetic Patterning in Plants

Every cell within an organism shares an identical genetic blueprint. Their distinct identities stem from epigenetics—precise chemical markers that dictate gene expression.

24 Nov 2025

Discovery Reveals Greater Epigenetic Complexity in Unicellular Life

Multicellular organisms (animals, plants, human) all have the ability to methylate the cytosine © base in their DNA. This process, a type of epigenetic modification, plays an important role in conditions such as cancer and processes such as aging.

19 Nov 2025

New "Ultra-Mild" Method Corrects Cancer DNA Methylation Test Errors

Traditional bisulfite sequencing damages DNA, while enzyme-based alternatives are inconsistent. A novel methylation analysis method, called UMBS-seq, was published this week in Nature Communications. UMBS-seq achieves both accuracy and gentleness, unlocking more reliable cancer biomarker detection.

13 Nov 2025

Genetic Tool Successfully Repairs Mitochondrial Mutations in Human Cells

In a step toward treating mitochondrial diseases, researchers in the Netherlands have successfully edited harmful mutations in mitochondrial DNA using a genetic tool known as a base editor.

25 Jun 2025

Base Editing Breakthrough Brings Hope for Genetic Disease Treatment

You may have seen it in the news recently: a baby in Pennsylvania with a rare genetic disorder was healed with a personalized treatment that repaired his specific genetic mutation.

5 Jun 2025

Key Regulators of Mutant Huntingtin Protein in Neuronal Transport

Ten years ago, researchers from the University at Buffalo provided some insight into a long-standing neuroscience conundrum: How precisely does Huntington's disease result from a mutation in the huntingtin protein (HTT)?

6 May 2025

The Entropy of DNA Methylation States can Estimate Chronological Age

Recent findings link DNA methylation entropy to chronological age, offering insights into epigenetic changes that could inform age-related disease treatments.

24 Apr 2025

Researchers Develop Quantum-AI Platform to Predict Antimicrobial Resistance in Salmonella

SARPLLM leverages large language modeling and quantum algorithms to predict Salmonella AMR, offering robust analysis and user-friendly data visualization tools.

17 Apr 2025

New Computational Approach Speeds Up Genetic Variant Analysis for Disease Risk

Argonne computer scientists enabled a new research modality in the search for causality among genetic variants for a given disease.

18 Feb 2025

Mismatch Repair Genes Found to be Key Drivers of Huntington's Disease

A new UCLA Health study has discovered in mouse models that genes associated with repairing mismatched DNA are critical in eliciting damages to neurons that are most vulnerable in Huntington's disease and triggering downstream pathologies and motor impairment, shedding light on disease mechanisms and potential new ways to develop therapies.

12 Feb 2025

Long-Read Sequencing Brings New Hope for Rare Disease Diagnosis and Treatment

One in every 10 people worldwide is impacted by a rare genetic disease but about 50% of them remain undiagnosed despite rapid increases in genetic technology and testing.

27 Jan 2025

PlantRNA-FM: Bridging the Gap Between RNA Structure and Function

With PlantRNA-FM, researchers can systematically analyze plant RNA, uncovering functional motifs that play key roles in gene expression and stress responses.

23 Dec 2024

Advancing Sequential DNA Computing for Programmable Devices

DNA stores the instructions for life and, along with enzymes and other molecules, computes everything from hair color to risk of developing diseases.

13 Dec 2024

Epigenetic Switch Found to Activate Genes in Embryos

Researchers led by the Institute of Molecular Biology have found that 5-formylcytosine (5fC), a DNA alteration, acts as an activating epigenetic switch to activate genes during the early stages of embryonic development.

19 Sep 2024

Ribose-Water Interactions Stabilize RNA Structures

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a biological molecule that plays an important part in organismal genetics as well as the creation and development of life.

11 Sep 2024

A Landmark Study Reveals the Widespread Existence of DNA i-Motifs

Innovative study of DNA's hidden structures may open up new approaches for treatment and diagnosis of diseases, including cancer.

30 Aug 2024

CDCA7's Role in DNA Methylation Maintenance Revealed in Recent Study

DNA methylation is a process in which a methyl group is attached to the cytosine base of the DNA molecule, and a major way that DNA is epigenetically marked. Epigenetic modifications can act as on-off switches to regulate gene expression and help generate diverse cell types without changing the underlying DNA sequence. It is how the body ensures that brain-related genes don't get turned on in heart cells, for example.

28 Aug 2024

The Role of DNA Repair Pathways in Antibody Somatic Hypermutation

In a recent online publication in SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences, researchers from the laboratory of Leng-Siew Yeap at the Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine published a review article entitled "Molecular Mechanisms of DNA Lesion and Repair During Antibody Somatic Hypermutation". This review comprehensively summarizes the mechanisms involved in the generation of antigen-specific diversified antibodies, with a particular focus on the mechanisms that generate high-frequency point mutations and low-frequency deletions and insertions (indels) in antibody genes.

22 Aug 2024

Graph Neural Networks: A Novel Approach to Deciphering Gene-Enhancer Interactions

Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have developed a new computational method for linking molecular marks on our DNA to gene activity.

4 Jun 2024