Viruses acquire genes from eukaryotes — organisms whose cells store their DNA in a nucleus — and use them for their own function. Conversely, eukaryotes acquire genes from viruses to bring new ...

Medusavirus, a giant virus, is more closely related to eukaryotic cells than other giant viruses are. In an exciting new study, scientists have used electron microscopy and time-course analysis to ...

Researchers recently discovered that a virus, FloV-SA2, encodes one of the proteins needed to make ribosomes, the central engines in all cells that translate genetic information into proteins, the ...

Maybe the first life on Earth was part of an 'RNA world.' Artur Plawgo/Science Photo Library via Getty Images How life on Earth started has puzzled scientists for a long time. And it still does.

Scientists generally agree that eukaryotes, the domain of life whose cells contain nuclei and that includes almost all multicellular organisms, originated from a process involving the symbiotic union ...

Scientists have been trying to learn more about archaea since these microbes were discovered in the 1970s. Their DNA is not contained in a nucleus, so they are a type of prokaryote, and were initially ...

The first comprehensive analysis of viral horizontal gene transfer (HGT) illustrates the extent to which viruses pick up genes from their hosts to hone their infection process, while at the same time ...

For foreign DNA to make it into a eukaryotic cell’s genome, DNA must first enter the cell, then cross the nuclear envelope, and finally insert itself into the genome. Below are a number of proposed ...

In cells, ribosomes (shown as grey blobs) read RNA messages and convert the information into proteins. The researchers hypothesize that during infection, one component of the ribosome, eL40 (green ...