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Spatial organization of chromosomes leads to heterogeneous chromatin motion and drives the liquid- or gel-like dynamical behavior of chromatin.
Genome Res, 32(1):28-43.
Chromosome organization and dynamics are involved in regulating many fundamentalprocesses such as gene transcription and DNA repair. Experiments unveiled thatchromatin motion is highly heterogeneous inside cell nuclei, ranging from aliquid-like, mobile state to a gel-like, rigid regime. Using polymer modeling, weinvestigate how these different physical states and dynamical heterogeneities mayemerge from the same structural mechanisms. We found that the formation oftopologically associating domains (TADs) is a key driver of chromatin motionheterogeneity. In particular, we showed that the local degree of compaction of theTAD regulates the transition from a weakly compact, fluid state of chromatin to amore compact, gel state exhibiting anomalous diffusion and coherent motion. Our workprovides a comprehensive study of chromosome dynamics and a unified view ofchromatin motion enabling interpretation of the wide variety of dynamical behaviorsobserved experimentally across different biological conditions, suggesting that the"liquid" or "solid" state of chromatin are in fact two sides of the same coin.
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