Haifa Researchers Use Laser ‘Tweezers’ to Study Structure and Dynamics of DNA Packaging in All Cells
(Worthy News) – Each one of the cells in our bodies contains DNA, which dictates the instructions needed for living things to develop and function. Incredibly, a total of two meters of DNA is packaged in each tiny cell’s nucleus, which is just tens of microns in size. This is made possible to packaging the DNA into a compact structure called chromatin.
The basic level of chromatin organization is provided by wrapping the DNA around proteins called histones in a spool-like structure that resembles beads on a string. Then, more complex structures called chromatosomes are formed with the help of a special histone known as a linker histone that connects the strings.
But scientists have not known much about the structure and dynamics of chromatosomes, leaving the most basic questions of how they bind DNA.
Now, researchers in the Biology Faculty of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have used “laser tweezers” to accomplish this. Their study, just published in the journal Molecular Cell under the title “Extended and dynamic linker histone-DNA Interactions control chromatosome compaction,” was conducted by Dr. Sergei Rudnizky under the supervision of Profs. Ariel Kaplan and hilippa Melamed. [ Source: Israel 365 (Read More…) ]