Credit: Nucleic Acids Research
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology decipher how to quantitatively assess the effects of specific epigenetic changes on the rate of transcription by developing a mathematical model. For this, they successfully generated reconstituted chromatin bearing histone modifications in vitro. Their study published in
Nucleic Acids Research provides an accurate quantitative approach for understanding how site-specific changes to histone proteins impact the accessibility of chromatin and gene expression levels.
The creation of a single protein is a long and complicated process. Even just the generation of its blueprint itself, known as a coding transcript, from a DNA template involves numerous steps and players. To start with, the DNA is usually found neatly wrapped around proteins called histones to form a nucleosome, the fundamental subunit of a tightly condensed structure called chromatin. The extent of its condensation determines how much of the DNA