title: Recent insights from in vitro single-molecule studies into nucleosome structure and dynamics.
abstract: Eukaryotic DNA is tightly packed into a hierarchically ordered structure called chromatin in order to fit into the micron-scaled nucleus. The basic unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, which consists of a short piece of DNA wrapped around a core of eight histone proteins. In addition to their role in packaging DNA, nucleosomes impact the regulation of essential nuclear processes such as replication, transcription, and repair by controlling the accessibility of DNA. Thus, knowledge of this fundamental DNA-protein complex is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of gene control. While structural and biochemical studies over the past few decades have provided key insights into both the molecular composition and functional aspects of nucleosomes, these approaches necessarily average over large populations and times. In contrast, single-molecule methods are capable of revealing features of subpopulations and dynamic changes in the structure or function of biomolecules, rendering them a powerful complementary tool for probing mechanistic aspects of DNA-protein interactions. In this review, we highlight how these single-molecule approaches have recently yielded new insights into nucleosomal and subnucleosomal structures and dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Bionanoscience Department, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience,, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9,, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Orkide
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ordu
authors.affiliation: Division of Molecular Biology, Biocenter, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innrain 80-82, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lusser
authors.affiliation: Bionanoscience Department, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience,, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9,, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Nynke H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Dekker
keywords: (Sub)nucleosome structure and dynamics; Histones; Nucleosome remodeling; Post-translational modifications; Single-molecule techniques; Transcriptional barrier