Modelling supercoiling and epigenetics in DNA and chromatin

该项目将涵盖DNA物理学的不同方面。我们的目标是，在项目的第一部分，将重点关注超螺旋如何影响转录，然后它如何调节基因表达。事实上，一些实验表明，DNA的超盘绕和转录是紧密相连的。在第二部分中，我们将以现有的模型和代码为基础，这些模型和代码描述了不同长度尺度或粗粒度水平的DNA，以研究DNA如何在活细胞内的三维空间中折叠。在项目的最后一部分，我们将研究表观遗传标记在染色质中的扩散动力学。

The project will cover different aspects of the physics of DNA. Our aim, in the first part of the project, will be to spotlight how supercoiling can influence transcription and then how it can regulate gene expression. Indeed several experiments suggest that DNA supercoiling and transcription are intimately connected each other. In the second part, we will build on existing models and codes which describe DNA at various length scales or levels of coarse graining in order to study how DNA folds up in the 3-dimensional space inside a living cell. In the final part of the project, we will study the spreading dynamics of epigenetic marks in chromatin.