Synonymous codons may encode the same amino acid, but host cells do not treat them as interchangeable. Codon preferences vary ...

For decades, scientists working with genetic material have labored with a few basic rules in mind. To start, DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), and mRNA is translated into proteins, which ...

One of modern biologists' most ambitious goals is to learn how to expand or otherwise modify the genetic code of life on Earth, in order to make new, artificial life forms. Part of the motivation for ...

A team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has identified a structural trick that lets viruses translate their genetic code inside human cells, even when that code is riddled with “bad” codons the host ...

In April 2021, Jamie McGowan was running a routine test. A computational biologist at the Earlham Institute in Norwich, England, McGowan had fed a single-celled organism’s genetic data into a ...

Superimposed on the genetic sequences coding for amino acids is a second genetic code. This second genetic code, which makes use of dual-use codons, or duons, specifies how genes are controlled. The ...

As wildly diverse as life on Earth is—whether it’s a jaguar hunting down a deer in the Amazon, an orchid vine spiraling around a tree in the Congo, primitive cells growing in boiling hot springs in ...

A central tenet of biology may need updating given new measurements of start codons. For decades, scientists working with genetic material have labored with a few basic rules in mind. To start, DNA is ...

Cells working with an expanded genetic code could make more diverse medicines. A new study shows scientists are within striking distance. One of modern biologists' most ambitious goals is to learn how ...