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Keeping chromatin in the loop(s)

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 22, pages 439–440 (2021)Cite this article

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Eukaryotic chromosomes are huge DNA polymers organized in space and time. Chromatin looping compacts these polymers, helps genome organization by the formation of enhancer–promoter and other interactions, and emerges when genes are highly expressed. Thus, several types of chromatin loops exist, which vary in structure, maintenance and function.

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Acknowledgements

This commentary is dedicated to the memory of Herbert Macgregor, who inspired our studies of transcription loops. L.A.M. is supported by the NIH grant GM114190 and the Common Fund 4D Nucleome Program HG011536; I.S. is supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grants SP2202/SO1054/2 and SFB1064.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Leonid A. Mirny

  2. Biozentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Martinsried, Germany

    Irina Solovei

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  1. Leonid A. Mirny
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  2. Irina Solovei
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Correspondence to Leonid A. Mirny or Irina Solovei.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Mirny, L.A., Solovei, I. Keeping chromatin in the loop(s). Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 22, 439–440 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-021-00337-x

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