genetic damage

Aphids (plant lice) and ants carry minibacteria that produce essential amino acids and vitamins. These minibacteria have very limited genetic material and many broken genes.

Now, researchers have found that repeated errors in the conversion of DNA to protein save the function of the damaged genes.

(University of Utah) When a cell's chromosomes lose their ends, the cell usually kills itself to stem the genetic damage.

But University of Utah biologists discovered how those cells can evade suicide and start down the path to cancer.

The new study of fruit flies is the first to show in animals that losing just one telomere -- the end of a chromosome -- can lead to many abnormalities in a cell's chromosomes.