Abstract
The exploration of the spatial organiza-tion of chromosomes in the cell nucleushas been greatly enhanced by genome-scale technologies such as Hi-C methods.Polymermodels arehelpingto understandthe new emerging complex scenarios andhere we review some recent developments.In the cell nucleus of eukaryotes, chro-mosomes have a complex spatial organi-zation serving vital functional purposes,with structural disruptions being linkedto disease (Fraser and Bickmore, 2007;Lanctot et al., 2007; Misteli, 2007; Pomboand Branco, 2007). The development oftechnologies such as Hi-C ( Lieberman-Aiden et al., 2009) has opened the wayto mapping chromatin interactions ata genomic scale. It is emerging thatchromosomes tend to form 1Mb sizeddomains with increased levels of intra-interactions (known, e.g., as TopologicalDomains, TDs) (Dixon et al., 2012; Noraet al., 2012), but contacts extend acrossentire chromosomes (Branco and Pombo,2006; Shopland et al., 2006; Fraser andBickmore, 2007; Kalhor et al., 2011;Sexton et al., 2012), as highlighted bythe average contact probability of twosites,
Highlights
The exploration of the spatial organization of chromosomes in the cell nucleus has been greatly enhanced by genomescale technologies such as Hi-C methods
It is emerging that chromosomes tend to form 1Mb sized domains with increased levels of intrainteractions (Dixon et al, 2012; Nora et al, 2012), but contacts extend across entire chromosomes (Branco and Pombo, 2006; Shopland et al, 2006; Fraser and Bickmore, 2007; Kalhor et al, 2011; Sexton et al, 2012), as highlighted by the average contact probability of two sites, Pc(s), which is non-zero for large genomic separations, s
The average contact probability, Pc(s), was originally reported for a single human cell line to have an exponent α = 1.08 (Lieberman-Aiden et al, 2009), which is not found in usual equilibrium polymer systems [see (Langowski, 2006; Marenduzzo et al, 2006; Emanuel et al, 2009; Tark-Dame et al, 2011) and references therein]
Summary
The exploration of the spatial organization of chromosomes in the cell nucleus has been greatly enhanced by genomescale technologies such as Hi-C methods. It is emerging that chromosomes tend to form 1Mb sized domains with increased levels of intrainteractions (known, e.g., as Topological Domains, TDs) (Dixon et al, 2012; Nora et al, 2012), but contacts extend across entire chromosomes (Branco and Pombo, 2006; Shopland et al, 2006; Fraser and Bickmore, 2007; Kalhor et al, 2011; Sexton et al, 2012), as highlighted by the average contact probability of two sites, Pc(s), which is non-zero for large genomic separations, s.
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