Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is characterized by specific chromosomal translocations, which generate fusion proteins such as promyelocytic leukemia (PML)-retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and promyelocytic leukemia zinc finger (PLZF)-RAR (X-RAR ). In this study, we have applied lac operator array systems to study the effects of X-RAR versus wild-type RAR on large-scale chromatin structure. The...

In this paper, a lattice model for the diffusional transport of chromatin-binding particles in the interphase cell nucleus is proposed. Sliding effects are studied in dense networks of chromatin fibers created by three different methods: Randomly distributed, noninterconnected obstacles, a random walk chain model with an attractive step potential, and a self-avoiding random walk chain model wit...

Viral nucleoprotein complexes were extracted from nuclei of permissive cells (CV-1) infected with simian virus 40 (SV40) and examined by electron microscopy. SV40 nucleoprotein complexes (SV40 chromatin) showed nucleosomes in linear bead-like arrangements along the extended closed circular DNA. The contour length of the SV40 chromatin was only 1.0-1.8 times shorter than that of viral DNA obtain...

Chromatin is composed of genomic DNA and histones, forming a hierarchical architecture in the nucleus. The chromatin hierarchy is common among eukaryotes despite different intrinsic properties of the genome. To investigate an effect of the differences in genome organization, chromatin unfolding processes were comparatively analyzed using Schizosaccaromyces pombe, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and c...

The diffusive motion of DNA-containing chromatin in live cells and isolated nuclei is investigated using a two-photon standing wave fluorescence photobleaching experiment with 100 nm spatial resolution. The chromatin is labeled using the minor groove binding dye Hoechst 33342. In live cells, the mean diffusion rate is 5 x 10(-4) micro m2/s, with considerable cell-to-cell variation. This diffusi...