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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 24: Poster B: Active Biological Matter, Cell Mechanics, Systems Biology, Computational Biophysics, etc.
BP 24.4: Poster
Dienstag, 23. März 2021, 16:00–18:30, BPp
RNA polymerase II forms clusters in line with liquid-phase wetting of chromatin — Agnieszka Pancholi1, Tim Klingberg2, Weichun Zhang1, Roshan Prizak1, Irina Mamontova1, Amra Noa1, Gerd Ulrich Nienhaus1, Vasily Zaburdaev2, and •Lennart Hilbert1 — 1Karlsruhe Institute of Technology — 2Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Two major control points for transcription in eukaryotic cells are recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) into a paused state and subsequent pause release to begin transcript elongation. Pol II associates with macromolecular clusters during recruitment, but it remains unclear how Pol II recruitment and pause release might affect these clusters. Here, we show that clusters exhibit morphologies that are in line with wetting of chromatin by a liquid phase enriched in recruited Pol II. Applying super-resolution microscopy to zebrafish embryos, we find recruited Pol II associated with large clusters, and elongating Pol II with dispersed clusters. A lattice kinetic Monte Carlo model representing recruited Pol II as a liquid phase and chromatin as a condensation surface reproduced the observed cluster morphologies, see Klingberg et al. Considering previous in vitro observations of condensate formation by wetting of DNA, our work indicates that similar liquid-phase wetting of chromatin might occur in vivo.