ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2008
Analysis of cryo-electron microscopy images does not support the existence of 30-nm chromatin fibers in mitotic chromosomes in situ.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 186 papers.
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186 citing papers in PubMed, 415 citations in OpenAlex.
- Coffee-ring effect enables correlative super-resolution imaging of label-free chromosomes.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2026Article
- Molecular dynamics guided all-atom reconstruction of cryo-ET maps reveals mechanisms of histone tail mediated chromatin compaction.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Epigenetics in development, disease, and therapy: from mechanisms to clinical interventions.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Review
- Mixing chromatin fibers with different nucleosome repeat lengths changes dynamics of chromatin phase separation.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Article
- Architecture and regulation of nanoscale chromatin domains.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Nucleosome condensate and linker DNA alter chromatin folding pathways and rates.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- Direct measurement of sub-kilobase chromatin structure reveals that linker histone H1 broadly compacts chromatin, with differential impact amongst epigenetic states.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Resolving interface structure and local internal mechanics of mitotic chromosomes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Nucleosome Linker Length and Distribution as Major Players in Epigenetic Regulation: Insights from Cryo-Electron Microscopy and Modeling of Retina Cell Maturation.DNA and cell biology · 2025Review
- Calyculin A Induces Premature Chromosome Condensation and Chromatin Compaction in GbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Chromatin architecture mapping by multiplex proximity tagging.Molecular cell · 2025Article
- Herpes simplex virus type 1 reshapes host chromatin architecture via transcription machinery hijacking.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The shifting paradigm of chromatin structure: from the 30-nm chromatin fiber to liquid-like organization.Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and biological sciences · 2025Review
- Compromised two-start zigzag chromatin folding in immature mouse retina cells driven by irregularly spaced nucleosomes with short DNA linkers.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Article
- Nanoscale analysis of human G1 and metaphase chromatin in situ.The EMBO journal · 2025Article
- Cryo-EM Structures of Native Chromatin Units From Human Cells.Genes to cells : devoted to molecular & cellular mechanisms · 2025Article
- ChromEMT: visualizing and reconstructing chromatin ultrastructure and 3D organization in situ.Nature protocols · 2025Review
- Single-nucleosome imaging unveils that condensins and nucleosome-nucleosome interactions differentially constrain chromatin to organize mitotic chromosomes.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Determining mesoscale chromatin structure parameters from spatially correlated cleavage data using a coarse-grained oligonucleosome model.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
126 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although the formation of 30-nm chromatin fibers is thought to be the most basic event of chromatin compaction, it remains controversial because high-resolution imaging of chromatin in living eukaryotic cells had not been possible until now. Cryo-electron microscopy of vitreous sections is a relatively new technique, which enables direct high-resolution observation of the cell structures in a close-to-native state. We used cryo-electron microscopy and image processing to further investigate the presence of 30-nm chromatin fibers in human mitotic chromosomes. HeLa S3 cells were vitrified by high-pressure freezing, thin-sectioned, and then imaged under the cryo-electron microscope without any further chemical treatment or staining. For an unambiguous interpretation of the images, the effects of the contrast transfer function were computationally corrected. The mitotic chromosomes of the HeLa S3 cells appeared as compact structures with a homogeneous grainy texture, in which there were no visible 30-nm fibers. Power spectra of the chromosome images also gave no indication of 30-nm chromatin folding. These results, together with our observations of the effects of chromosome swelling, strongly suggest that, within the bulk of compact metaphase chromosomes, the nucleosomal fiber does not undergo 30-nm folding, but exists in a highly disordered and interdigitated state, which is, on the local scale, comparable with a polymer melt.
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