DNA is once again in the limelight and may just change the way we look at the world. This research was a collaboration between Hoencamp from the University of Amsterdam and Dudchengo from Bayer College of Medicine, Texas. Here I want to point out the benefits of collaboration and how together, people from different corners of the world can connect (yes, even during a pandemic) and work on discovering something beautiful.
There are two parts of this research, the point before the two research teams met together at a conference and after they decided to collaborate.
Hoencamp was researching a protein, Condensin II, which was involved in cell division. In her experiment, she destroyed this protein to determine its effects on the cell cycle. She then found that chromosomes in the human nucleus would refold but like that of a mosquito's chromosome.
In the meantime, Dudchenko was classifying chromosome structures where she noticed specific patterns: the tight coils of the human chromosomes vs the loser ones in mosquitoes. Countless Examinations of various species always fell into one of the two above categories. Looking back, she found that species tended to switch between these two architectures.
After the two scientists shared their findings at a conference in Amsterdam they realised that were looking at the same situation from different perspectives.
They took to computer simulations (in light of the Covid Pandemic) to continue research and found that the results supported Hoencamp's previous research.
Species, like the mosquito, tended to have a 'broken' Condensin II gene which would explain their looser arrangement. However, this looseness did not affect gene expression; this was naturally a surprise. The two are still working on the problem, but when they do come up with a solution, I will keep you posted. In the meanwhile, I hope you could see how working together can help us uncover new aspects, that otherwise may leave us baffled for years to come.
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