Biomechanical properties of chromatin in cancer and normal cells

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In 2019, we published a seminal paper showing that mechanical properties of chromatin are encoded in the histone variants which epigenetically and structurally mark specialized loci like centromeres. Since that work, several papers have also been published in the field studying this phenomenon on a global genomic scale. Our current work attempts to bring together biophysical questions to the cancer and aging epigenome, to understand whether changes in stretching, crowding, or other properties of chromatin are altered with disease, and if so, which factors underlie these changes. We then anticipate asking whether reversal of such factors might restore integrity to the chromatin meshwork, thereby suppressing oncogenic or aging related phenotypes in the nuclear response to strain/stress.