3D genome architecture pre-wires early developmental decisions

New research tracks how cells prepare gene regulatory decisions that will define their fate during the earliest stages of human development.

The study reconstructs a timeline of chromosome folding that brings remote DNA regulatory regions into physical contact with genes they control.

This work, from a team at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) and Imperial College London, with collaborators from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, shows that some of these contacts form long before genes are activated, persist through later development and may help preselect the future gene targets of these regions.

These findings highlight how the genome's 3D structure helps shape cell identity and could offer clues to how developmental disorders arise. ...