Related papers: Quantifying the mobility of chromatin during embry…
Free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a powerful genetic model, essential for investigations ranging from behavior to neuroscience to aging, and locomotion is a key observable used in these studies. However, despite the fact that…
The ability of cells to move through small spaces depends on the mechanical properties of the cellular cytoskeleton and on nuclear deformability. In mammalian cells, the cytoskeleton is comprised of three interacting, semi-flexible polymer…
The state of chromatin in individual cells is directly related to the state of the whole organism and may be used for assessment of the state of the whole organism. Many hereditary diseases are connected with chromatin rearrangements.…
The monomer surface mobility is the single most important parameter that decides the nucleation density and morphology of islands during thin film growth. During template-assisted surface growth in particular, low surface mobilities can…
Recent progress has been made in the understanding of the physical properties of chromatin -- the dense complex of DNA and histone proteins that occupies the nuclei of plant and animal cells. Here I will focus on the two lowest levels of…
Active loop extrusion - the process of formation of dynamically growing chromatin loops due to the motor activity of DNA-binding protein complexes - is firmly established mechanism responsible for chromatin spatial organization at different…
The momentum distributions of partons in bound nucleons are known to depend significantly on the size of the nucleus. The Fourier transform of the momentum ($\xbj$) distribution measures the overlap between Fock components of the nucleon…
The average size of internal translated exons, ranging from 120 to 165 nt across metazoans, is approximately the size of the typical mononucleosome (147 nt). Genome-wide study has also shown that nucleosome occupancy is significantly higher…
We study the spontaneous ''sliding'' of histone spools (nucleosomes) along DNA as a result of thermally activated single base pair twist defects. To this end we map the system onto a suitably extended Frenkel-Kontorova model. Combining…
Co-localization of networks of genes in the nucleus is thought to play an important role in determining gene expression patterns. Based upon experimental data, we built a dynamical model to test whether pure diffusion could account for the…
The nuclear morphology of eukaryotic cells is determined by the interplay between the lamina forming the nuclear skeleton, the chromatin inside the nucleus and the coupling with the cytoskeleton. Nuclear alterations are often associated…
The genome contains genetic information essential for cell's life. The genome's spatial organization inside the cell nucleus is critical for its proper function including gene regulation. The two major genomic compartments -- euchromatin…
Characterizing the link between small-scale chromatin structure and large-scale chromosome folding during interphase is a prerequisite for understanding transcription. Yet, this link remains poorly investigated. Here, we introduce a simple…
We propose that the degree of sweeling of the 30nm chromatin fiber (a "measure" of its transcriptional activity) is mainly determined by the short-ranged electrostatical interaction between different sections of the "folded" DNA chain.…
The development of multicellular organisms relies on the precise coordination of molecular events across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding how information flows from molecular interactions to cellular processes and tissue…
The ability of eukaryotic cells to squeeze through constrictions is limited by the stiffness of their large and rigid nucleus. However, migrating cells are often able to overcome this limitation and pass through constrictions much smaller…
Chromatin and associated proteins constitute the highly folded structure of chromosomes. We consider a self-avoiding polymer model of the chromatin, segments of which may get cross-linked via protein binders that repel each other. The…
In Xenopus early embryos, replication origins neither require specific DNA sequences nor is there an efficient S/M checkpoint, even though the whole genome (3 billion bases) is completely duplicated within 10-20 minutes. This leads to…
We investigate the phase transition properties of the polymer-Potts model, a chain composed of monomers with magnetic degrees of freedom, with the motivation to study the conformation and mark switching dynamics of chromatin. By the…
The influence of the nuclear medium upon the internal structure of a composite nucleon is examined. The interaction with the medium is assumed to depend on the relative distances between the quarks in the nucleon consistent with the notion…