Related papers: Transcription-driven genome organization: a model …
Increasing evidence suggests that chromosome folding and genetic expression are intimately connected. For example, the co-expression of a large number of genes can benefit from their spatial co-localization in the cellular space.…
Transcriptional activity has been shown to relate to the organization of chromosomes in the eukaryotic nucleus and in the bacterial nucleoid. In particular, highly transcribed genes, RNA polymerases and transcription factors gather into…
Transcription is a fundamental cellular process, and the first step of gene expression. In human cells, it depends on the binding to chromatin of various proteins, including RNA polymerases and numerous transcription factors (TFs).…
Our aim is to predict how often genic and non-genic promoters fire within a cell. We first review a parsimonious pan-genomic model for genome organization and gene regulation, where transcription rate is determined by proximity in 3D space…
We employ the diffusing transcription factors model for numerical simulation of chromatin topology conformations and transcriptional processes of human chromatin. Simulations of a short chromatin filament reveal different possible pathways…
Chromosome organisation is increasingly recognised as an essential component of genome regulation, cell fate and cell health. Within the realm of transposable elements (TEs) however, the spatial information of how genomes are folded is…
Biophysicists are modeling conformations of interphase chromosomes, often basing the strengths of interactions between segments distant on the genetic map on contact frequencies determined experimentally. Here, instead, we develop a…
Timely up- or down-regulation of gene expression is crucial for cellular differentiation and function. While gene upregulation via transcriptional activators has been extensively investigated, gene silencing remains understudied, especially…
Transcriptional noise, or heterogeneity, is important in cellular development and in disease. The molecular mechanisms driving it are, however, elusive and ill-understood. Here, we use computer simulations to explore the role of 3D…
Transcription factor proteins bind specific DNA sequences to control the expression of genes. They contain DNA binding domains which belong to several super-families, each with a specific mechanism of DNA binding. The total number of…
Condensation of hundreds of mega-base-pair-long human chromosomes in a small nuclear volume is a spectacular phenomenon. This process is driven by the formation of chromosome loops. ATP consuming motor, condensin, interacts with chromatin…
We discuss a polymer model for the 3D organization of human chromosomes. A chromosome is represented by a string of beads, with each bead being "colored" according to 1D bioinformatic data (e.g., chromatin state, histone modification, GC…
DNA is subject to large deformations in a wide range of biological processes. Two key examples illustrate how such deformations influence the readout of the genetic information: the sequestering of eukaryotic genes by nucleosomes, and DNA…
The three-dimensional organization of chromatin is thought to play an important role in controlling gene expression. Specificity in expression is achieved through the interaction of transcription factors and other nuclear proteins with…
Three-dimensional (3D) chromatin structure is closely related to genome function, in particular transcription. However, the folding path of the chromatin fiber in the interphase nucleus is unknown. Here, we systematically measured the 3D…
The formation of DNA loops by proteins and protein complexes that bind at distal DNA sites plays a central role in many cellular processes, such as transcription, recombination, and replication. Here we review the basic thermodynamic…
Many cellular responses to surrounding cues require temporally concerted transcriptional regulation of multiple genes. In prokaryotic cells, a single-input-module motif with one transcription factor regulating multiple target genes can…
The 3D folding of a mammalian gene can be studied by a polymer model, where the chromatin fibre is represented by a semiflexible polymer which interacts with multivalent proteins, representing complexes of DNA-binding transcription factors…
The most common gene regulation mechanism is when a transcription factor protein binds to a regulatory sequence to increase or decrease RNA transcription. However, transcription factors face two main challenges when searching for these…
Polymerases are protein enzymes that move along nucleic acid chains and catalyze template-based polymerization reactions during gene transcription and replication. The polymerases also substantially improve transcription or replication…