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Cells use loop extrusion to weave and tie the genome

A study reveals that a process called loop extrusion, which is central to the folding and function of chromosomes, also seems to play a key part in the repair of double-strand DNA breaks.
  1. Leonid A. Mirny

    1. Leonid A. Mirny is at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts 02139, USA.

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One of the challenges that all organisms face is how to compress long DNA molecules — two metres long in the case of human DNA — into the cell nucleus in an ordered and tidy fashion. The DNA must also be protected from damage. Writing in Nature, Arnould et al.1 highlight the ingenuity with which cells achieve these aims: one of the mechanisms involved in packing and folding DNA, namely loop extrusion, is also involved in repairing damage.

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Nature 590, 554-555 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00351-1

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