The eukaryotic genome is packaged into chromatin. The nucleosome, the basic unit of chromatin, is composed of DNA coiled around a histone octamer. Histones are among the longest-lived protein species in mammalian cells, due to their thermodynamic stability and their associations with DNA and histone chaperones. Histone metabolism plays an...
A fundamental goal in biology is to understand how distinct cell types containing the same genetic information arise from a single stem cell throughout development. Sex determination is a key developmental process that requires a unidirectional commitment of an initially bipotential gonad towards either the male or female fate. This...
The role of nuclei nanoenvironment in cellular function has been a challenging problem in biology due to the lack of chromatin 3-dimension (3D) structure imaging/capturing techniques and theory connecting physical structure of chromatin to transcription. Recent studies on optical properties measurement on biological sample techniques, nanoscale imaging techniques and chromatin...
Nucleosome organization influences gene activity by controlling DNA accessibility to transcription machinery. In this thesis, we have developed a chemical biology approach to determine mammalian nucleosome positions genome-wide. Using this strategy, we uncover surprising new features of nucleosome organization in mouse embryonic stem cells. In contrast to the prevailing model,...
