Chromosome motor discovery supports DNA loop extrusion

It is one of the great mysteries in biology: How does a cell neatly distribute its replicated DNA between two daughter cells? For more than a century, we have known that DNA in the cell is comparable to a plate of spaghetti—a jumble of intermingled strands. When cells divide, they have to pack two metres of DNA into tidy little packages—chromosomes. This packing is induced by proteins called condensin, but scientists are split regarding the actual mechanism. One argument holds that t