Chromatin remodelling articles from across Nature Portfolio

Koh et al. show that loci active in differentiated effector T cells are poised in early T precursors before the expression of T cell antigen receptors in a manner dependent on the chromatin remodeling complex mammalian SWItch/Sucrose Non-Fermentable and the PU.1–RUNX1 and BCL11B–RUNX1 complexes.

Nucleosome-protein complexes stick to the air-water interface and denature upon plunge freezing for cryoEM. Here, authors Chio and Palovcak et al. develop EM grids that protect such complexes and use these grids to study the ATP-dependent chromatin remodeler SNF2h.

Using deep mutational scanning, the authors uncover the functional consequence of missense mutations in ARID1B, a subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex that is frequently mutated in human Coffin–Siris syndrome and in cancer.

Salvadores and Supek derive three regional mutation density signatures from whole-genome profiles of >4,000 tumors that are associated with cell cycle gene expression and alter somatic mutation rates independently of tissue of origin.

A paper in Nature Genetics identifies a mechanism involving the transcription factor DUXBL that controls the development of early embryonic mouse cells past stages marked by totipotency.

Martin et al. report that the EP400/TIP60 complex can compensate for function of the SWI/SNF complex to remodel chromatin at some promoters.

The first detailed investigation of CD8⁺ tumor-infiltrating T cell differentiation in the hours after cells enter a tumor has yielded an unexpected twist. Naive T cells veer away from effector fate and enter the path towards exhaustion much earlier than expected.

Pioneer transcription factors access gene regulatory sites embedded within chromatin. They drive gene expression programs vital for cell fate decisions and cellular reprogramming, but how they engage nucleosomal sites at the molecular level is unclear. New results show that they engage histones and collaborate to overcome the nucleosome barrier.

Subunits of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complexes ‘bookmark’ cell-type specifying genes during mitosis to allow their timely reactivation upon mitosis exit.