Antipolar and Anticlinic Mesophase Order in Chromatin Induced by Nucleosome Polarity and Chirality Correlations
Abstract
Contrary to the usual "rigid supermolecular assembly" paradigm of chromatin structure, we propose to analyze its eventual ordered state in terms of symmetry properties of individual nucleosomes that give rise to mesophase order parameters, like in many other soft-matter systems. Basing our approach on the Landau-de Gennes phenomenology, we describe the mesoscale order in chromatin by antipolar and anticlinic correlations of chiral individual nucleosomes. This approach leads to a unifying physical picture of a whole series of soft locally ordered states with different apparent structures, including the recently observed heteromorphic chromatin, stemming from the antipolar arrangement of nucleosomes complemented by their chiral twisting. Properties of these states under an external force field can reconcile apparently contradictory results of single-molecule experiments.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- June 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.238102
- Bibcode:
- 2015PhRvL.114w8102G
- Keywords:
-
- 87.16.Sr;
- 64.70.mf;
- 87.16.A-;
- Chromosomes histones;
- Theory and modeling of specific liquid crystal transitions including computer simulation;
- Theory modeling and simulations