Molecular Mechanism of Nucleosome Stability and Dynamics

Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Aleksei Aksimentiev, Jejoong Yoo, Christopher Maffeo, Maxim Belkin, Shu-Han Chao, Chen-Yu Li, Karl Decker, Derek VanDamme, James Wilson, Dmitrii Kochkov, Taekjip Ha, Leila Sloman

Every living cell stores a blueprint of life (genome), which contains the genetic information necessary for survival and proliferation. For development and adaptation, cells must have an efficient and inheritable gene-regulation mechanism, which collectively referred to as epigenetics. Epigenetics also has been linked to several diseases including cancer. A DNA-protein complex nucleosome is a structural unit of the genome that features many epigenetic markers, which program the activation level of genes. Although recently experimental data indicate that the epigenetic regulation mechanism involves control of chromatin flexibility and compaction levels, the mechanism is still mostly mysterious. By combining simulations using the Blue Waters supercomputer and novel single-molecule experiments, we aim to uncover the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic regulation.

http://bio.physics.illinois.edu/