Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

GENOME ENGINEERING

Repacking chromatin for therapy

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 1, pages 858–859 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

A theoretical model of chromatin packing heterogeneity predicts patterns in gene expression and can be used to screen for effective chemotherapeutic adjuvants.

Many genetic diseases result from the collective behaviour of tens to hundreds of genes rather than from the ill behaviour of a single gene1,2. Thus, designing therapies for such diseases might require the dynamic manipulation of the entire genome. Although epigenetics has established a close connection between the local physicochemical structure of chromatin (at the level of histones) and gene expression3, a ‘code’ that correlates the conformation of the chromatin fibre with a specific, global gene-expression pattern of the cell is missing. Knowledge of such a code could enable the manipulation of the conformational space of chromatin to deactivate gene-expression patterns in complex multi-gene diseases. Currently, no technologies allow for predictably engineering transcriptional patterns of multiple genes simultaneously. Reporting in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Vadim Backman and colleagues now show with theoretical modelling and experiments that altering the supra-nucleosomal physical structure of chromatin provides a means for the controlled modulation of global patterns in gene expression4.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: Dynamic reorganization of the genome.

References

  1. Collins, F. S. N. Engl. J. Med. 341, 28–37 (1999).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Bailey, J. N. et al. Genes 5, 518–535 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Portella, A. & Esteller, M. Nat. Biotechnol. 28, 1057–1067 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Almassalha, L. M. et al. Nat. Biomed. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0153-2 (2017).

  5. De Gennes, P.-G. Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991).

  6. Halverson, J. D. et al. Rep. Prog. Phys. 77, 022601 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Cavalli, G. & Misteli, T. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 20, 290–299 (2013).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Lieberman-Aiden, E. et al. Science 326, 289–293 (2009).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Nagano, T. et al. Nature 502, 59–64 (2013).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Kumaran, R. I., Thakar, R. & Spector, D. L. Cell 21, 929–934 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hübner, M. R. & Spector, D. L. Annu. Rev. Biophys. 39, 471–489 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Chen, B. et al. Cell 155, 1479–1491 (2013).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  13. Anton, T. et al. Nucleus 5, 163–172 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Zidovska, A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 15555–15560 (2013).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Bruinsma, R. et al. Biophys. J. 106, 1871–1881 (2014).

    CAS  Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Soft Matter Research, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Alexandra Zidovska

Authors
  1. Alexandra Zidovska
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexandra Zidovska.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zidovska, A. Repacking chromatin for therapy. Nat Biomed Eng 1, 858–859 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0161-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0161-2

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing