Human mitotic chromosome structure: what happened to the 30-nm fibre?

Abstract

EMBO J 31 7, 1644–1653 February172012 The long-standing view of chromosome packaging is that 10-nm beads-on-a string chromatin fibres fold into higher-order 30-nm fibres, which further twist and coil to form highly condensed chromosomes. After four decades of intense pursuit of the structure and properties of 30-nm chromatin fibres, work of Nishino et al (2012) in this issue of The EMBO Journal demonstrates that regular 30-nm fibres are absent from human mitotic chromosomes. The emerging view is that chromosome-level condensation can be achieved through packaging of 10-nm fibres in a fractal manner.