Colloquium on Chromatin Domain Structure and Dynamics

The Department of Physics, School of Natural Sciences, invites you to a colloquium on 9th July 2024 (Tuesday) from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (IST) at venue C-021. The speaker, Prof. P. B. Sunil Kumar, Professor in the Department of Physics and Centre for Soft and Biological Matter at IIT Madras, will present on the topic "Polymer models for chromatin domain structure and dynamics: Interplay between cohesin kinetics, polymer relaxation, and nonequilibrium switching of segmental states."

Abstract:

The three-dimensional organisation of chromatin into domains and compartments leads to a specific scaling of contact probability and compaction with genomic distance. However, chromatin is also dynamic, with active loop extrusion and chemical modifications playing crucial roles. While the extrusion of loops by cohesion-like proteins ensures a specific spatial organisation, how it affects the dynamic scaling of measurable quantities is an open question. Similarly, the existing models of chromatin assume the chemical states and protein organisation along chromatin to be static. The effect of dynamic assembly and disassembly of nucleosomes on the compaction of chromatin is largely unexplored. Using polymer simulations with active loop extrusion and dynamic switching of segmental states, we demonstrate that the interplay between these timescales and polymer relaxation can influence the 3D organisation of chromatin polymer.

Related articles.
1. S Sahoo et al. Soft Matter, 2024, 20, 4621
2. S. Kadam et al. bioRxiv, 2024.05. 07.592992.