Ultrastructural Details of Mammalian Chromosome Architecture

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Krietenstein, Nils
  • Sameer Abraham
  • Sergey V Venev
  • Nezar Abdennur
  • Johan Gibcus
  • Tsung-Han S Hsieh
  • Krishna Mohan Parsi
  • Liyan Yang
  • René Maehr
  • Leonid A Mirny
  • Job Dekker
  • Oliver J Rando

Over the past decade, 3C-related methods have provided remarkable insights into chromosome folding in vivo. To overcome the limited resolution of prior studies, we extend a recently developed Hi-C variant, Micro-C, to map chromosome architecture at nucleosome resolution in human ESCs and fibroblasts. Micro-C robustly captures known features of chromosome folding including compartment organization, topologically associating domains, and interactions between CTCF binding sites. In addition, Micro-C provides a detailed map of nucleosome positions and localizes contact domain boundaries with nucleosomal precision. Compared to Hi-C, Micro-C exhibits an order of magnitude greater dynamic range, allowing the identification of ∼20,000 additional loops in each cell type. Many newly identified peaks are localized along extrusion stripes and form transitive grids, consistent with their anchors being pause sites impeding cohesin-dependent loop extrusion. Our analyses comprise the highest-resolution maps of chromosome folding in human cells to date, providing a valuable resource for studies of chromosome organization.

Original languageEnglish
JournalMolecular Cell
Volume78
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)554-565.e7
ISSN1097-2765
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 May 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Research areas

  • Animals, CCCTC-Binding Factor/metabolism, Cells, Cultured, Chromatin/chemistry, Chromosomes, Human/ultrastructure, Chromosomes, Mammalian/ultrastructure, Embryonic Stem Cells/cytology, Fibroblasts/cytology, Humans, Male, Mammals/genetics, Nucleosomes/metabolism, Signal-To-Noise Ratio

ID: 301925297