On a personal note, my favourite part of this project was the research team of amazing scientists behind it, lovely human beings who were a joy to work with!

Very happy and proud of this Rosen/Redding/Collepardo collaborative effort 🔥

also on bky:
@rcollepardo.bsky.social @janhuemar.bsky.social

By merging together experiments (led by Lifeng Chen), with our own coarse-grained simulations, we showcased how experimental and computational approaches can be used in tandem to unveil the molecular mechanisms that drive phase separation.

We also show the ISWI remodeler can slide nucleosomes to “on”✔️ or “off” ❌ spacings, toggling phase separation in vitro and in silico

Arrays with nucleosome spacing closer to a multiple of 10 (the DNA helical periodicity 🧬), are more compact, with increased intra-fiber contacts and lower inter-fiber valency, and form more loose, less stable networks in the condensate

These structural differences dictate condensate behaviour of chromatin arrays.

The key metric? Inter-fiber valency (how many neighbours each fiber contacts).

Higher valency in arrays (namely, arrays close to 10N+5 linkers) make for stronger inter-fiber interactions, and more stable condensates.

We designed nucleosome arrays with different linker DNA lengths, at single base pair resolution, in-vitro and in-silico.

We found that even subtle changes in spacing lead to large-scale structural differences (!)

Nucleosomes—the fundamental units of chromatin—can self-assemble into condensates. But what controls how they assemble?
Spacing between them matters: Just changing the DNA length between nucleosomes, even by a single base pair, dramatically alters how they interact and phase separate.

🚨 New paper out in Nature Comms!

From the Rosen, Redding and Collepardo Labs, we uncover how #nucleosome spacing fine-tunes the architecture of #chromatin condensates.

👇 A short thread on how physical #genome organization emerges from molecular interactions:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌱Join us for the first #FragileNucleosome seminar of this spring! We are excited to host @juliamaristany.bsky.social & @chribue.bsky.social this week!
If you have registered before you can join from the same link, if not, don't forget to register!
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

We are happy to share our work on local #nucleosome dynamics integrating #temperature inputs into an #epigenetic switching mechanism.

⚠️ Preprint alert!!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What is the multiscale structure of chromatin condensates? How does it shape thermodynamic and material properties?

We address this at near-atomistic resolution🔥🔥🔥 using cryoET (Rosen & Villa labs, led by H Zhou), a new multiscale model (K Russell) and cryoET-guided sims (J Huertas & J Maristany)

So excited to see our most recent paper in collaboration with the Rosen Lab out in Bioarxiv today!! 🔥🔥

We look into chromatin condensates in high resolution! 🧪🔬👩‍🔬 Using cryo-ET and MD sims, we studied chromatin condensates across scales, from individual amino acids to their network architecture!

Exciting new preprint alert! 🚨 The Collepardo lab, teaming up with Huabin Zhou and the Rosen lab we took a deep, high-resolution look into chromatin condensates! [1/6] #Chromatin #MD @rcollepardo.bsky.social @juliamaristany.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Multiscale Genome Organisation is now on Bluesky!

Our first post is to announce our next webinar. Join us next week on Tuesday, Jan. 28th at 12:00 E.T. for two exciting talks by Pablo Dans and @gfudenberg.bsky.social
See you all there!

Link:
mit.zoom.us/j/91715298970

How does chromatin linker length affect its emergent phase behavior? 🧬👩‍🔬

We explore this question via microscopy and MD simulations: Our new paper, in collaboration with the Rosen and Redding Labs, is out today!! 🔥