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Published November 2017 | Published
Journal Article Open

The role of DNA sequence in nucleosome breathing

Abstract

Roughly 3/4 of human genomes are sequestered by nucleosomes, DNA spools with a protein core, dictating a broad range of biological processes, ranging from gene regulation, recombination, and replication, to chromosome condensation. Nucleosomes are dynamical structures and temporarily expose wrapped DNA through spontaneous unspooling from either end, a process called site exposure or nucleosome breathing. Here we ask how this process is influenced by the mechanical properties of the wrapped DNA, which is known to depend on the underlying base pair sequence. Using a coarse-grained nucleosome model we calculate the accessibility profiles for site exposure. We find that the process is very sensitive to sequence effects, so that evolution could potentially tune the accessibility of nucleosomal DNA and would only need a small number of mutations to do so.

Additional Information

© 2017 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received 27 July 2017 and Received in final form 8 November 2017; Published online: 30 November 2017. This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/OCW), as part of the Frontiers of Nanoscience program. Author contribution statement: RP and HS conceived the idea. LdB developed the software. JC performed the simulations. JC and MT did the calculations. All authors interpreted the results and wrote the paper.

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August 19, 2023
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