Dresden 2020 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 8: Poster I
BP 8.6: Poster
Monday, March 16, 2020, 17:30–19:30, P2/1OG
Bending rigidity of heterochromatin alone can induce segregation in model eukaryotic cell nuclei — Martin Girard2, Kurt Kremer2, John F. Marko3, Monica Olvera de la Cruz3, and •Aykut Erbas1 — 1Bilkent University - UNAM, Ankara 06800, Turkey — 2Max-Planck Instutute for Polymer Science, Mainz 55128, Mainz, Germany — 3Northwestern University, Evanston 60202, USA
One of the unresolved puzzles in biological sciences is the 3D packing of the meters-long DNA molecule into the confinement of micrometer-scale cell nucleus while regulating fundamental cellular activities, from protein transcription to replication. Although the underlying 3D conformation of the genome is a complex phenomenon resulting from the dynamic interactions between nuclear proteins and negatively charged DNA, relatively simple computational models can guide us about the large-scale and long-time behavior of the chromatin. Our extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations provide an auxiliary, possibly alternative, mechanism for heterochromatin (i.e., a histone-rich version of the chromatin) localization in the cell nucleus. We showed that coalescence of heterochromatin at the nuclear center can be mimicked even for an ideal mixture scenario throughout the suppressed bending fluctuations of the heterochromatin fiber. Further, our model system also suggests that switching of the interactions between confining nuclear shell and the heterochromatin can recover the conventional segregation regime, in which heterochromatin occupies the nuclear periphery.