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Rapid, gel-free and cost-effective isolation of all known classes of silencing small RNAs
Silencing small (s)RNAs are key to gene expression control, yet accessing ‘sRNAomes’ is labor-intensive. A publication in Nucleic Acids Research by the Voinnet group describes a highly simplified and universal method developed to that aim, likely to become transformative for research and diagnostic.
A role for cyclin dependent kinase Cdk8 in the mammalian dosage compensation system
Cyclin dependent kinases are important cellular regulators and drug targets for a number of diseases. Now a specific function of Cdk8 for gene repression in X chromosome inactivation has been characterized. This finding advances our understanding of the cellular mechanism for dynamic gene regulation by Cdk8.
How cells regulate DNA repair during meiosis and mitosis
Grigaitis et al. show that the Bloom’s helicase ortholog, Sgs1, is sequentially phosphorylated by two cell cycle kinases: CDK and Cdc5/PLK. Phosphorylation regulates DNA unwinding by Sgs1, which is required for efficient mitotic and meiotic DNA repair. Context-specific changes in Sgs1 helicase activity influence recombination outcome (noncrossover vs. crossover).