title: Portrait of a molecule.
abstract: The double helix is idealized for its aesthetic elegant structure, but the reality of DNA's physical existence is quite different. Most DNA in the cell is compressed into a tangled package that somehow still exposes itself to meticulous gene-regulatory control. Philip Ball holds a mirror up to what we truly know about the mysteries of DNA's life inside a cell.
authors.affiliation: Nature, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW, UK.p.ball@nature.com
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ball
mesh_terms: D002843:Chromatin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006801:Humans; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D004247:DNA