Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics

DNA in every human cell is roughly two meters long yet must fold into a nucleus a few micrometers across, and how that folding is managed turns out to be inseparable from which genes are switched on or off. Chromatin — the complex of DNA wound around histone proteins — is not a passive packaging solution but an active regulatory layer, with chemical modifications on histones and the three-dimensional looping of chromosomes both shaping which stretches of DNA, including distant enhancers, can influence gene expression. Researchers in this area are working to understand the precise rules that connect chromatin architecture to transcriptional outcomes, and to decode how disruptions in these rules contribute to disease. Central open questions include how the hundreds of known histone modifications are read in combination rather than in isolation, and how the dynamic, cell-type-specific folding of the genome is established and inherited through cell division.

Works

94,344

Total citations

3,173,651

Keywords

ChromatinTranscriptionHistone ModificationsEpigeneticsGene RegulationEnhancers