Modelling supercoiling and epigenetics in DNA and chromatin

该项目将涵盖DNA物理学的不同方面。在项目的第一部分，我们的目标是聚焦超螺旋如何影响转录，然后如何调节基因表达。事实上，一些实验表明，DNA超螺旋和转录是密切相关的。在第二部分中，我们将建立在现有的模型和代码，这些模型和代码描述了不同长度尺度或粗粒化水平的DNA，以研究DNA如何在活细胞内的三维空间中折叠。在项目的最后部分，我们将研究染色质中表观遗传标记的扩散动力学。

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.