Related papers: Motorized Chromosome Models of Mitosis
During the eukaryotic cell cycle, chromatin undergoes several conformational changes, which are believed to play key roles in gene expression regulation during interphase, and in genome replication and division during mitosis. In this…
Successful cell division requires a tight regulation of chromosome motion via the activity of molecular motors. Many of the key players at the origin of the forces generating the movement have been identified, but their spatial and temporal…
Faithful segregation of genetic material during cell division requires alignment of chromosomes between two spindle poles and attachment of their kinetochores to each of the poles. Failure of these complex dynamical processes leads to…
Spatial organization of chromatin plays a critical role in genome regulation. Various types of affinity mediators and enzymes have been attributed to regulate spatial organization of chromatin from a thermodynamics perspective. However, at…
Chromosomal crossovers play a crucial role in meiotic cell division, as they ensure proper chromosome segregation and increase genetic variability. Experiments have consistently revealed two key observations across species: (i) the number…
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.…
Background: For faithful chromosome segregation during cell division, correct attachments must be established between sister chromosomes and microtubules from opposite spindle poles through kinetochores (chromosome bi-orientation).…
Topological entanglements severely interfere with important biological processes. For this reason, genomes must be kept unknotted and unlinked during most of a cell cycle. Type II Topoisomerase (TopoII) enzymes play an important role in…
How long threadlike eukaryotic chromosomes fit tidily in the small volume of the nucleus without significant entanglement is just beginning to be understood, thanks to major advances in experimental techniques. Several polymer models, which…
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…
This paper describes an investigation into part of the mechanical mechanisms underlying the formation of mitotic spindle, the cellular machinery responsible for chromosomal separation during cell division. In normal eukaryotic cells,…
Magnetic tweezers are used to study the mechanical response under torsion of single nucleosome arrays reconstituted on tandem repeats of 5S positioning sequences. Regular arrays are extremely resilient and can reversibly accommodate a large…
Assembly and stability of mitotic spindle is governed by the interplay of various intra-cellular forces, e.g. the forces generated by motor proteins by sliding overlapping anti-parallel microtubules (MTs) polymerized from the opposite…
Motivated by recent experiments probing shape, size and dynamics of bacterial chromosomes in growing cells, we consider a polymer model consisting of a circular backbone to which side-loops are attached, confined to a cylindrical cell. Such…
We present a model improving the two-angle model for interphase chromatin (E2A model). This model takes into account the cylindrical shape of the histone octamers, the H1 histones in front of the nucleosomes and the vertical distance $d$…
A prominent organizational feature of bacterial chromosomes was revealed by Hi-C experiments, indicating anomalously high contacts between the left and right chromosomal arms. These long-range contacts have been attributed to various…
Non-processive molecular motors have to work together in ensembles in order to generate appreciable levels of force or movement. In skeletal muscle, for example, hundreds of myosin II molecules cooperate in thick filaments. In non-muscle…
During interphase, a typical cell nucleus features spatial compartmentalization of transcriptionally active euchromatin and repressed heterochromatin domains. In conventional nuclear organization, euchromatin predominantly occupies the…
Structural-Maintenance-of-Chromosome (SMC) complexes such as condensins organise the folding of chromosomes. However, their role in modulating the entanglement of DNA and chromatin is not fully understood. To address this question, we…
During eukaryotic cell division, a microtubule-based structure called the spindle exerts forces on chromosomes, thereby organizing and segregating them Extensive work demonstrates that the forces acting parallel to the spindle axis,…