The Chromatin Accessibility Complex: Chromatin Dynamics through Nucleosome Sliding

The chromatin accessibility complex: chromatin dynamics through nucleosome sliding.

Local nucleosome dynamics facilitate chromatin accessibility in living mammalian cells.

Genome information, which is three-dimensionally organized within cells as chromatin, is searched and read by various proteins for diverse cell functions. Although how the protein factors find their targets remains unclear, the dynamic and flexible nature of chromatin is likely crucial. Using a combined approach of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, single-nucleosome imaging, and Monte Carl...

Chromatin: The nucleosome unwrapped

The structure of the nucleosome core particle has been determined by X-ray crystallography at 2.8 A resolution. The structure has several significant surprises, and provides important new insights into the structure and function of chromatin.

Folding DNA into nucleosome and chromatin: dynamics

A theoretical framework for evaluating the approximate energy and dynamic properties associated with the folding of DNA into nucleosomes and chromatin is presented. For this purpose experimentally determined elastic constants of linear DNA and a simple fold geometry are assumed to derive constants for the higher order folding. The model predicts the correct order of magnitude for the experiment...

Nucleosome dynamics during chromatin remodeling in vivo

Precise positioning of nucleosomes around regulatory sites is achieved by the action of chromatin remodelers, which use the energy of ATP to slide, evict or change the composition of nucleosomes. Chromatin remodelers act to bind nucleosomes, disrupt histone-DNA interactions and translocate the DNA around the histone core to reposition nucleosomes. Hence, remodeling is expected to involve nucleo...