Genome structural dynamics and transcription regulation

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26610130
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biological physics/Chemical physics/Soft matter physics
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: SASAI Masaki 名古屋大学, 工学研究科, 教授 (30178628)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: クロマチン / ゲノム / 分子動力学 / 転写制御 / 相分離

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Genome is not an abstract sequence of alphabet but a physical entity confined in the nucleus. We developed a computational method to simulate the three-dimensional structure and movement of genomes. We consider chromosomes as heteropolymers, which are comprised of local chromatin regions having various different physical properties; we assumed that those local properties are determined by the epigenetic histone marks of the corresponding regions. Simulations of human fibroblast and lymphoblastoid nuclei showed that the method developed in this project quantitatively reproduced the experimentally observed contact frequency between chromatin regions and nuclear lamina, Hi-C contact pattern data, contact frequency between chromatin regions and nucleoli, and compartmentalization of transcription active and inactive regions. Thus, the computational method developed in this project can be a platform for the systematic study of genome physics.

Free Research Field

理論生物物理学