Chromatin transactions – one molecule at a time
Faculty of Biology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
The inherent ensemble-averaging of traditional “bulk” methods poses a barrier to a mechanistic understanding of the different factors that shape the architecture of chromatin, and the mechanisms by which this architecture modulates the expression of specific genes. Using single-molecule optical tweezers experiments, we study the roles that DNA sequence, histone variants, and epigenetic markers play in modulating the structure and dynamics of nucleosomes and chromatosomes, the binding of transcription factors, and the elongation by RNA polymerase.