MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
One of the world's leading research institutes, our scientists are working to advance understanding of biological processes at the molecular level - providing the knowledge needed to solve key problems in human health.
The Wnt signalling pathway is an ancient cell communication pathway that has important roles in development and cancer. Wnt signals elicit context-dependent transcriptional responses by stabilising a cytoplasmic effector called beta-catenin. This controls the embryonic development of tissues and organs in all animals, from the most primitive ones all the way to humans.
DNA in the nucleus is arranged into nucleosomes to produce an 11nm fibre which then intricately folds into high order assemblies. This nuclear organisation – the 3D arrangement of the genome within the nucleus – is critically linked to nuclear processes. Previously it has only been possible to analyse genome organisation across populations of cells.
The suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus (SCN) is our principal “body clock”, controlling our daily (circadian) rhythms of physiology and behaviour that adapt us to the 24-hour cycle of day and night. It ensures that numerous other local tissue clocks distributed across the body are in tune with each other and with the external light-dark cycle.
In all present-day organisms, information encoded in DNA, the genetic material of the cell, is converted via an RNA intermediate into proteins, the molecular machines of the cell. However, evidence suggests that in a distant evolutionary past our single-celled ancestors used only RNA for both genetic information storage and metabolism. A cornerstone of this “RNA world” would have been an RNA able to replicate itself.
Mitochondria are organelles within eukaryotic cells that likely evolved from an ancient bacterium that was engulfed by a primordial eukaryote. Within mitochondria, mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes) synthesise a subset of essential proteins encoded by the mitochondrial genome.
Every minute, cells make millions of new proteins which must be transported to the correct location, folded, modified and assembled with other proteins in order to function properly. Failure at any of these maturation steps can reduce protein function and lead to the accumulation of aberrant protein intermediates, resulting in disease.