Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics

Genomics and chromatin dynamics examines how the physical packaging of DNA inside the nucleus shapes which genes are turned on or off, and when. Rather than treating the genome as a simple linear sequence, researchers in this area study how DNA wraps around histone proteins to form chromatin, how chemical modifications to those histones alter gene accessibility, and how distant regulatory elements called enhancers communicate with the genes they control across the three-dimensional space of the nucleus. A central open question is how the cell reliably inherits these structural and chemical states through cell division without encoding them directly in the DNA sequence itself. Active work is also focused on deciphering the rules by which genome topology — the looping and compartmentalization of chromosomes — coordinates the precise timing and cell-type specificity of gene expression in development and disease.

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93,800

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3,154,721

Keywords

ChromatinTranscriptionHistone ModificationsEpigeneticsGene RegulationEnhancers