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DNA condensation refers to the process of compacting DNA molecules in vitro or in vivo. [1] Mechanistic details of DNA packing are essential for its functioning in the process of gene regulation in living systems. Condensed DNA often has surprising properties, which one would not predict from classical concepts of dilute solutions.
The organization of DNA presents a remarkable biological challenge: human DNA can reach 2 meters [1] and is packed into the nucleus with the diameter of 5-20 μm. [2] At the same time, the critical cell processes involve complex processes on highly compacted DNA, such as transcription, replication, recombination, DNA repair, and cell division.
[21] [22] Both RNAi and an exosome-dependent RNA degradation process contribute to heterochromatic gene silencing. These mechanisms of Schizosaccharomyces pombe may occur in other eukaryotes. [23] A large RNA structure called RevCen has also been implicated in the production of siRNAs to mediate heterochromatin formation in some fission yeast. [24]
In nature, DNA can form three structures, A-, B-, and Z-DNA. A- and B-DNA are very similar, forming right-handed helices, whereas Z-DNA is a left-handed helix with a zig-zag phosphate backbone. Z-DNA is thought to play a specific role in chromatin structure and transcription because of the properties of the junction between B- and Z-DNA.
DNA can be twisted like a rope in a process called DNA supercoiling. With DNA in its "relaxed" state, a strand usually circles the axis of the double helix once every 10.4 base pairs, but if the DNA is twisted the strands become more tightly or more loosely wound. [43]
Each nucleosome is composed of a little less than two turns of DNA wrapped around a set of eight proteins called histones, which are known as a histone octamer. Each histone octamer is composed of two copies each of the histone proteins H2A, H2B, H3, and H4. DNA must be compacted into nucleosomes to fit within the cell nucleus. [2]
It has been found to help facilitate DNA repair and recombination, meiotic chromosome pairing and orientation, chromosome condensation, DNA replication, gene expression, and genome architecture. [22] Cohesin is a heterodimer composed of the proteins SMC1 and SMC3 in combination with the SCC1 and SCC3 proteins.
This is a big task as the nucleus of a mammalian cell has a diameter of approximately 6 μm, whilst the DNA in one human cell would stretch to just over 2 metres long if it were unwound. [6] The "beads on a string" structure can compact DNA to 7 times smaller. [1] The solenoid structure can increase this to be 40 times smaller. [2]