Micromechanics of chromatin and chromosomes
Micromechanics of chromatin and chromosomes
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DOI：
10.1139/o03-047
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发表时间：
2003-06-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Poirier, MG
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Marko, JF;Poirier, MG
转录、重组、包装和复制真核基因组的酶都具有高度加工性并能够产生巨大的力量。因此，了解染色体功能需要力学和生物化学分析。在这里，我们回顾了用于研究分离的染色质纤维和染色体的机械特性的新生物物理生化技术的发展。我们还讨论了基于显微镜的细胞实验，以可视化染色体结构和动力学。染色质实验告诉我们它的灵活性和波动，以及量化染色质组装过程中产生的力。对整个染色体的实验可以深入了解染色质的高级组织；例如，最近的实验表明，有丝分裂染色体是通过分离的染色质-染色质链接而不是大的、机械连续的非DNA“支架”连接在一起的。
The enzymes that transcribe, recombine, package, and duplicate the eukaryotic genome all are highly processive and capable of generating large forces. Understanding chromosome function therefore will require analysis of mechanics as well as biochemistry. Here we review development of new biophysical biochemical techniques for studying the mechanical properties of isolated chromatin fibers and chromosomes. We also discuss microscopy-based experiments on cells that visualize chromosome structure and dynamics. Experiments on chromatin tell us about its flexibility and fluctuation, as well as quantifying the forces generated during chromatin assembly. Experiments on whole chromosomes provide insight into the higher-order organization of chromatin; for example, recent experiments have shown that the mitotic chromosome is held together by isolated chromatin-chromatin links and not a large, mechanically contiguous non-DNA "scaffold".