Organization of the Mitotic Chromosome

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1236083
• Publication Date: 2013-11-08T04:55:04Z
• Authors: Natalia Naumova; Maxim Imakaev; Geoffrey Fudenberg; Ye Zhan; Bryan R. Lajoie; Leonid A. Mirny; Job Dekker
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 21; Systems Biology; Cell Cycle; Computational Biology; Mitosis; 612; Chromatin; 03 medical and health sciences; Biopolymers; Models, Chemical; Humans; Metaphase; HeLa Cells

Chromosome Conundrum

The three-dimensional organization of chromosomal DNA within the cell nucleus plays an important role in gene regulation.

Naumova et al.

(p. 948 , published online 7 November; see the Perspective by

Kleckner et al.

) used chromosome conformation capture-based methods in human tissue culture cells to analyze the higher order folding of human chromosomes across the cell cycle. During interphase the chromosomes showed locus-specific compart-mentalization. In mitotic cells, on the other hand, the chromosome organization was more linear, consistent with arrays of consecutive chromatin loops.