Chromatin dynamics involved in gene regulation
There is a growing interest in manipulating chromatin dynamics for applications in cell signalling, drug discovery and chromatin research. Progress in this area requires the identification of design rules for the chromatin system.
DNA in cells is wrapped around proteins called histones forming structures known as nucleosomes. These nucleosomes can fold into higher ordered structures, concealing DNA within them. This reduces accessibility to the DNA and adds another layer to the regulation of gene expression. This is a new target for drug discovery.
Opening of these structures to expose the DNA is influenced, among other factors, by gene expression levels. The deregulation of gene expression levels could be responsible for many diseases possibly because proteins in charge of the burial of DNA in the nucleosomes are themselves deregulated. Studying these potential changes in gene expression without altering the underlying DNA sequence is known as Epigenetics, an actively expanding research field.
Decidedly, producing and purifying a protein is a form of art.
Gel filtration (GF), also referred as Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC), plays a key role in the high quality purification of enzymes, polysaccharides, nucleic acids, proteins and other biological macromolecules. Gel filtration is the simplest and mildest of all chromatography techniques to separate biomolecules on the basis of difference in size. Nevertheless, the list of available columns is quite awesome and the characteristics of each of them are very different. Also, each characteristic highly influences the quality of the final purified product with important consequences in downstream applications.