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IMAGE: A new computational technique that uses heat map data to reverse engineer highly detailed models of chromosomes and researchers have uncovered new information about the close spatial relationships that chromatin. view more
Credit: UIC
Genome analysis can provide information on genes and their location on a strand of DNA, but such analysis reveals little about their spatial location in relation to one another within chromosomes the highly complex, three-dimensional structures that hold genetic information.
Chromosomes resemble a fuzzy X in microscopy images and can carry thousands of genes. They are formed when DNA winds around proteins called histones which are further folded into complexes called chromatin, which make up individual chromosomes.