Related papers: Topological spectra and entropy of chromatin loop …
Polymer physics models suggest that chromatin spontaneously folds into loop networks with transcription units (TUs), such as enhancers and promoters, as anchors. Here we use combinatoric arguments to enumerate the emergent chromatin loop…
Current biophysical models for transcriptionally active chromatin view this as a polymer with sticky sites, mimicking transcription units such as promoters and enhancers which interact via the binding of multivalent complexes of…
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…
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…
The three dimensional structure of DNA in the nucleus (chromatin) plays an important role in many cellular processes. Recent experimental advances have led to high-throughput methods of capturing information about chromatin conformation on…
We review pro and contra of the hypothesis that generic polymer properties of topological constraints are behind many aspects of chromatin folding in eukaryotic cells. For that purpose, we review, first, recent theoretical and computational…
The three-dimensional organisation of chromosomes can be probed using methods such as Capture-C. However it is unclear how such population level data relates to the organisation within a single cell, and the mechanisms leading to the…
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…
While the structure of chromatin has been studied in great detail on length scales below 30 nm, amazingly little is known about the higher-order folding motifs of chromatin in interphase. Recent experiments give evidence that the folding…
Chromatin looping is a major epigenetic regulatory mechanism in higher eukaryotes. Besides its role in transcriptional regulation, chromatin loops have been proposed to play a pivotal role in the segregation of entire chromosomes. The…
Polymer networks invariably possess topological inhomogeneities in the form of loops and dangling ends. The macroscopic properties of such materials are directly dependent on the local cyclic topology around nodes and chains. Here, a new…
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.…
One of the most important problems in development is how epigenetic domains can be first established, and then maintained, within cells. To address this question, we propose a framework which couples 3D chromatin folding dynamics, to a…
The 3D organisation of the genome in interphase cells is not a randomly folded polymer. Rather, experiments show that chromosomes arrange into a network of 3D compartments that correlate with biological processes, such as transcription,…
Chromosomes are crumpled polymer chains further folded into a sequence of stochastic loops via loop extrusion. While extrusion has been verified experimentally, the particular means by which the extruding complexes bind DNA polymer remains…
In the nuclei of eukaryotic cells, DNA is packaged through several levels of compaction in an orderly retrievable way that enables the correct regulation of gene expression. The functional dynamics of this assembly involves the unwinding of…
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…
Cellular functions crucially depend on the precise execution of complex biochemical reactions taking place on the chromatin fiber in the tightly packed environment of the cell nucleus. Despite the availability of large data sets probing…
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…
Current models for the folding of the human genome see a hierarchy stretching down from chromosome territories, through A/B compartments and TADs (topologically-associating domains), to contact domains stabilized by cohesin and CTCF.…