Changing architecture: A new understanding of the spatial organization
It has now been 15 years since scientists celebrated the completion of the human genome. At that point, scientists had determined the entire sequence of the genetic letters making up our DNA. It is now known that this was only an initial step in a long journey: in addition to the chemical letters, information is also encoded in the manner in which the DNA is packed inside the cell nucleus. A research team led by Ana Pombo from the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin-Buch, in collaboration with international colleagues from Italy, Canada and Great Britain, has now generated comprehensive 3D maps of the spatial organization of the mouse genome, from embryonic stem cells to fully developed neurons. The work has been published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. In the future such maps might help track down genes that are involved in hereditary diseases.