Division of Molecular & Cellular Biosciences

Testing for functional adaptation in a genital bone: baculum size, shape, and microstructure show little plastic response to mating across five rodent species

Abstract Plasticity—the ability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to environmental input—can provide insight into the mechanical forces experienced by biological structures. Bones are particularly plastic, remodeling in response to sustained and repetitive...

The human cytomegalovirus vGPCR UL33 is essential for efficient lytic replication in epithelial cells

ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a β-herpesvirus that is ubiquitous in the human population. HCMV has the largest genome of the human herpesviruses and encodes an array of genes that affect pathogenesis in different cell types. Given the ability of HCMV to replicate in a...

Minimal organism JCVI-syn3.0, an engineered derivative of Mycoplasma mycoides , encodes an assortment of unrecognized membrane transporters and immunity factors

ABSTRACT In 2016, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute produced JCVI-Syn3.0, a derivative of Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri Large Colony strain GM12 with a re-engineered, minimized genome. The minimal synthetic genome of 532 kbp encodes 473 genes, selected from ∼910 par...