Rat-liver chromatin has bee fractionated into transcriptionally active and inactive regions [Gottesfeld et al. (1974) Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 71, 2193-2197] and the distribution of nuclease-resistant complexes in these fractions has been investigated. About half of the DNA of both fractions is resistant to attack by tne endonuclease DNase II. The nuclease-resistant structures of inactive chro...

The family of myc proto-oncogenes encodes transcription factors (c-, N-, and L-Myc) that regulate cell growth and proliferation and are involved in the etiology of diverse cancers. Myc proteins are thought to function by binding and regulating specific target genes. Here we report that Myc proteins are required for the widespread maintenance of active chromatin. Disruption of N-myc in neuronal ...

The establishment of a specific nucleoprotein structure, the telomere, is required to ensure the protection of chromosome ends from being recognized as DNA damage sites. Telomere shortening below a critical length triggers a DNA damage response that leads to replicative senescence. In normal human somatic cells, characterized by telomere shortening with each cell division, telomere uncapping is...

Homology-directed repair is a powerful mechanism for maintaining and altering genomic structure. We asked how chromatin structure contributes to the use of homologous sequences as donors for repair using the chicken B cell line DT40 as a model. In DT40, immunoglobulin genes undergo regulated sequence diversification by gene conversion templated by pseudogene donors. We found that the immunoglob...

A model for chromatin structure is presented. (a) Each of four histone species, H2A (IIbl or f2a2), H2B (IIb2 or f2b), H3 (III or f3) and H4 (IV or f2al) can form a parallel dimer. (b) These dimers can form two tetramers, (H2A)2(H2b)2 and (H3)2(H4)2. (C) These two tetramers bind a segment of DNA and condense it into a "C" segments. (d) The adjacent segments, termed extended or "E" segments, are...

Chromatin organization has a fundamental impact on the whole spectrum of genomic functions. Quantitative characterization of the chromatin structure, particularly at submicron length scales where chromatin fractal globules are formed, is critical to understanding this structure-function relationship. Such analysis is currently challenging due to the diffraction-limited resolution of conventiona...

The 3D chromatin structure modeling by chromatin interactions derived from Hi-C experiments is significantly challenged by the intrinsic sequencing biases in these experiments. Conventional modeling methods only focus on the bias among different chromatin regions within the same experiment but neglect the bias arising from different experimental sequencing depth. We now show that the regional i...

Conformational changes in DNA that accompany drug intercalation have led us to ask if DNA first bends or "kinks" to accept an intercalative drug or dye. Kinking is made possible by altering the normal C2' endo deoxyribose sugar ring puckering in B DNA to a mixed sugarpuckering pattern of the type C3' endo (3'-5') C2' endo and partially unstacking base-pairs. A kinking scheme such as this would ...

Chromatin is the physiologically relevant template for transcription: chromatin structure and transcriptional ini tiation must therefore be mechanistically linked. Nuccleosome coating of the DNA severely restricts the access of transcription factors to promoters. Nucleosomal templates are transcribed much less efficiently than naked DNA templates in vitro, and gross disruption of chromatin stru...