Figures
Bridging the movement and structure of chromatin domains in living cells
The mammalian genome is partitioned into submegabase-sized chromatin domains. Gene expression is highly regulated within domains, depending on their structure, whereas the chromatin itself is highly dynamic. We observed the movement of single nucleosomes using fluorescent labels (H2B-PA-mCherry; red spots in the background) in nuclei of living human cells. By modeling chromatin as a polymer with a fractal domain structure (lumps of fiber), the movement of nucleosomes was shown to depend on the domain structure they belong to. This means that the measured movement can provide information on how the fiber is packed in living cells. Shinkai et al.
Image Credit: Shinkai et al.
Citation: (2016) PLoS Computational Biology Issue Image | Vol. 12(10) October 2016. PLoS Comput Biol 12(10): ev12.i10. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pcbi.v12.i10
Published: October 28, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Shinkai et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The mammalian genome is partitioned into submegabase-sized chromatin domains. Gene expression is highly regulated within domains, depending on their structure, whereas the chromatin itself is highly dynamic. We observed the movement of single nucleosomes using fluorescent labels (H2B-PA-mCherry; red spots in the background) in nuclei of living human cells. By modeling chromatin as a polymer with a fractal domain structure (lumps of fiber), the movement of nucleosomes was shown to depend on the domain structure they belong to. This means that the measured movement can provide information on how the fiber is packed in living cells. Shinkai et al.
Image Credit: Shinkai et al.