X chromosomes are special, even for genetic material. They differ in number between men and women and to achieve equality between sexes, one out of two X chromosomes in women is silenced.
In Drosophila, the opposite happens: in male flies, the only available X chromosome is highly activated, to compensate for the absence of the second X-chromosome.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg haveshown how the RNA molecules and proteins involved in the activation find and stick to each other. Similar to the way a monkey that grabs a liana with hands and feet, one of the proteins holds on to the RNA, then it molds the molecular liana with its hands and generates a dynamic RNA – protein meeting place.
Read the full article here: Molecular Monkey Sometimes Throws A Wrench Into X-chromosome Activation