Computing the spatial organization and dynamics of chromatin domains

Abstract

Chromatin is a long polymer made of DNA and proteins; its four-dimensional (spatial and temporal) organisation is crucial in regulating cellular processes like transcription, replication and DNA repair. How the chromatin self-organises spatially and temporally is a question of active research. In this thesis, we discuss computational studies to predict the 3D organisation of chromatin, given experimentally measured contact probability (3C, 5C and Hi-C) data. We have developed an inverse Brownian dynamics method that can compute the chromatin organisation. We also investigate the dynamics of chromatin on the length scale of a domain.