Department of Chemistry, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003, U.S.A.
Biochem Soc Trans. 2013 Apr;41(2):494-500. doi: 10.1042/BST20120349.
The detailed structure and dynamics of the chromatin fibre and their relation to gene regulation represent important open biological questions. Recent advances in single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments have addressed these questions by directly measuring the forces that stabilize and alter the folded states of chromatin, and by investigating the mechanisms of fibre unfolding. We present examples that demonstrate how complementary modelling approaches have helped not only to interpret the experimental findings, but also to advance our knowledge of force-induced events such as unfolding of chromatin with dynamically bound linker histones and nucleosome unwrapping.
染色质纤维的详细结构和动力学及其与基因调控的关系是重要的开放性生物学问题。近年来，单分子力谱实验的进展通过直接测量稳定和改变染色质折叠状态的力，并研究纤维展开的机制，解决了这些问题。我们展示了一些示例，表明互补的建模方法不仅有助于解释实验结果，还有助于推进我们对力诱导事件的认识，例如带有动态结合连接组蛋白的染色质展开和核小体解旋。
