Program

I.9 -- Invited, IWTCP-3

Date: Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Time: 11h05 - 11h40

Eukaryotic chromatin folding and gene regulation

Naoko Tokuda, Shin Fujishiro, Masaki Sasai

Nagoya University

In the last decade, we have witnessed great advances in our understanding of bacterial gene regulation. In particular, quantitative comparison between the theoretical analyses of model gene networks and the experimental single cell-level analyses has played important roles in revealing statistical features of intensely fluctuating dynamics of gene expression. For eukaryotes, however, the theoretical framework for modeling gene regulation is still at the infancy level. By calculating “epigenetic landscape” from model eukaryotic gene network, we show that histone modification and the associated chromatin structure change should modify topology of landscape and thereby significantly affect associated dynamics of gene activities. In order to further quantify the effects of chromatin structure fluctuation on gene expression, we have started projects to simulate 3D genome architectures. The simulated results suggest that genome structure of interface budding yeast shows large liquid-like fluctuation, but spatial distributions of genes in nucleus are correlated with their expression level suggesting the intrinsic relation between gene regulation and chromatin structure. Our efforts to simulate human genome, where difficulty lies in its large size and degeneration in diploid copies, are also discussed.

[References] M. Sasai, et al., PLoS Comp. Biol. 9: e100338 (2013); S. S. Ashwin, M. Sasai, arXiv:1410.2337 [q-bio.MN] (2014); N. Tokuda, TP. Terada, M. Sasai, Biophys. J. 102: 296-304 (2012).

Presenter: Masaki Sasai