Biophysics of Protein-DNA Interactions, Chromosomes, and Cell Nuclei

Long DNA molecules—centimeters in length in the case of human cells—are organized inside the cell by being folded into micron-sized chromosomes. This folding is done by an array of proteins which keep the chromosome neatly compacted while allowing the DNA to be read, replicated and repaired. I will discuss our lab's biophysical force-measurement and visualization experiments, aimed at studying how tiny nanometer-scale protein molecules are able to deal with huge DNA molecules, both from the perspective of experiments examining the interaction of individual proteins and DNA segments, and from the perspective of whole chromosomes and whole nuclei.