Nuclear dynamics where genes are and how they got there 英文参考文献.docVIP

/2001/2/3/reviews/0002.1 Review Nuclear dynamics: where genes are and how they got there Jason R Swedlow and Angus I Lamond Address: Division of Gene Regulation and Expression, Wellcome Trust Biocentre, University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK. Correspondence: Jason R Swedlow. E-mail: j.swedlow@dundee.ac.uk Published: 9 Month 2001 GenomeBiology 2001, 2(3):reviews0002.1–0002.7 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2001/2/3/reviews/0002 ? BioMed Central Ltd (Print ISSN 1465-6906; Online ISSN 1465-6914) Abstract DNA is highly organized spatially, both within domains of chromatin along each chromosome and within the nucleus as a whole. Recent studies suggest that chromatin localization can affect transcriptional and replicational activity. The similarity between the movements of chromatin nuclear bodies suggests a common mechanism that regulates nuclear dynamics. We have grown used to the linear representation of the genome as a cluster of coloured lines representing different chromosomes or sections thereof. Unfortunately, for those of us studying its properties, the structure of the genome in vivo is far more complicated. Each chromosome is a complex of protein and nucleic acid, assembled into higher- order chromatin structures and packed into the cell nucleus. It is this chromatin complex that is the substrate for tran- scription, replication, damage repair and recombination. But chromatin can exist in at least two forms, termed ?open? and ?closed?, that differ in their accessibility to nuclear factors including transcriptional activators and the replication machinery. It now appears that processes governing the opening of chromatin may play key regulatory roles in the nucleus. Recent studies have shown that loci do indeed expand upon transcriptional activation [1,2]. Moreover, prote