Micromechanical studies of mitotic chromosomes

John F. Marko

doi:10.1007/s10577-008-1233-7

Micromechanical studies of mitotic chromosomes

John F. Marko

Molecular Biosciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

97 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mitotic chromosomes respond elastically to forces in the nanonewton range, a property important to transduction of stresses used as mechanical regulatory signals during cell division. In addition to being important biologically, chromosome elasticity can be used as a tool for investigating the folding of chromatin. This paper reviews experiments studying stretching and bending stiffness of mitotic chromosomes, plus experiments where changes in chromosome elasticity resulting from chemical and enzyme treatments were used to analyse connectivity of chromatin inside chromosomes. Experiments with nucleases indicate that non-DNA elements constraining mitotic chromatin must be isolated from one another, leading to the conclusion that mitotic chromosomes have a chromatin 'network' or 'gel' organization, with stretches of chromatin strung between 'crosslinking' points. The as-yet unresolved questions of the identities of the putative chromatin crosslinkers and their organization inside mitotic chromosomes are discussed.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	469-497
Number of pages	29
Journal	Chromosome Research
Volume	16
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10577-008-1233-7
State	Published - May 2008

Funding

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help and advice of Prateek Gupta, Tamar Monhait, Chee Xiong, Eric Siggia, Herbert Macgregor, Peter Moens, Chris Woodcock, Susan Gasser, Nancy Kleckner, Lynn Zecheidrich, Nick Cozzarelli, Tatsuya Hirano, Carlos Bustamante, Didier Chatenay, Bahram Houchmandzadeh, Albert Libchaber, Michael Elbaum, Deborah Fygenson, Peter Moens, Joe Gall, Andrew Maniotis, Paul Janmey, Josef Kas, Wallace Marshall, John Sedat, Rebecca Heald, Abby Dernburg, Stefan Dimitrov, Ulrich Laemmli, Ted Salmon, Lon Kaufman, and Arnold Kaplan. This research would not have been possible without the kind gift of the TVI cell line from David Reese. Experiments at UIC were supported by grants from the Whitaker Foundation, the NSF (DMR-9734178), Research Corporation, the Johnson and Johnson Focused Giving Program, the Petroleum Research Foundation of the American Chemical Society, and the University of Illinois Foundation.

Keywords

Chromatin
Chromosome
Chromosome mechanics
Mitosis
Single-molecule experiments

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Genetics

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10.1007/s10577-008-1233-7

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title = "Micromechanical studies of mitotic chromosomes",

abstract = "Mitotic chromosomes respond elastically to forces in the nanonewton range, a property important to transduction of stresses used as mechanical regulatory signals during cell division. In addition to being important biologically, chromosome elasticity can be used as a tool for investigating the folding of chromatin. This paper reviews experiments studying stretching and bending stiffness of mitotic chromosomes, plus experiments where changes in chromosome elasticity resulting from chemical and enzyme treatments were used to analyse connectivity of chromatin inside chromosomes. Experiments with nucleases indicate that non-DNA elements constraining mitotic chromatin must be isolated from one another, leading to the conclusion that mitotic chromosomes have a chromatin 'network' or 'gel' organization, with stretches of chromatin strung between 'crosslinking' points. The as-yet unresolved questions of the identities of the putative chromatin crosslinkers and their organization inside mitotic chromosomes are discussed.",

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N2 - Mitotic chromosomes respond elastically to forces in the nanonewton range, a property important to transduction of stresses used as mechanical regulatory signals during cell division. In addition to being important biologically, chromosome elasticity can be used as a tool for investigating the folding of chromatin. This paper reviews experiments studying stretching and bending stiffness of mitotic chromosomes, plus experiments where changes in chromosome elasticity resulting from chemical and enzyme treatments were used to analyse connectivity of chromatin inside chromosomes. Experiments with nucleases indicate that non-DNA elements constraining mitotic chromatin must be isolated from one another, leading to the conclusion that mitotic chromosomes have a chromatin 'network' or 'gel' organization, with stretches of chromatin strung between 'crosslinking' points. The as-yet unresolved questions of the identities of the putative chromatin crosslinkers and their organization inside mitotic chromosomes are discussed.

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Micromechanical studies of mitotic chromosomes

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