2002/06/25 by I. M. Kulic, Igor M. Kulić, H. Schiessel +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry #Diffusion and Search Dynamics #Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics #cond-mat.soft #physics.bio-ph #q-bio
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0006-3495(03)70044-7
arxiv created 2002/06/25 · openalex publication_date 2003/05/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Active (catalysed) and passive (intrinsic) nucleosome repositioning is known to be a crucial event during the transcriptional activation of certain eucaryotic genes. Here we consider theoretically the intrinsic mechanism and study in detail the energetics and dynamics of DNA-loop-mediated nucleosome repositioning, as previously proposed by Schiessel et al. (H. Schiessel, J. Widom, R. F. Bruinsma, and W. M. Gelbart. 2001. \it Phys. Rev. Lett. 86:4414-4417). The surprising outcome of the present study is the inherent nonlocality of nucleosome motion within this model -- being a direct physical consequence of the loop mechanism. On long enough DNA templates the longer jumps dominate over the previously predicted local motion, a fact that contrasts simple diffusive mechanisms considered before. The possible experimental outcome resulting from the considered mechanism is predicted, discussed and compared to existing experimental findings.