In multicellular organisms, transcriptional regulation allows for specialization, such that cells carrying the same genetic code can carry out different functions and roles. In plants, a new unbiased screen allowed researchers in the group of Magnus Nordborg at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) to uncover that regulatory sequences act differently depending on their position – contrary to animals, in which transcriptional regulation is position-independent. The results were published in Nature Genetics on September 12.