title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221 CNRS-Université Montpellier 2, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garcés
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Physics, J. Stefan Institute, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.|Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Podgornik
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221 CNRS-Université Montpellier 2, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lorman
mesh_terms: D016764:Cell Polarity / Q000502:physiology; D002843:Chromatin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009707:Nucleosomes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D013237:Stereoisomerism
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D009707:Nucleosomes; D004247:DNA