Chromatin: Structure, Dynamics, Regulation

by Ralf Blossey (Author)

An invaluable resource for computational biologists and researchers from other fields seeking an introduction to the topic, Chromatin: Structure, Dynamics, Regulation offers comprehensive coverage of this dynamic interdisciplinary field, from the basics to the latest research. Computational methods from statistical physics and bioinformatics are detailed whenever possible without lengthy recourse to specialized techniques.

Review
For everyone who is interested in chromatin organization and its role in gene regulation and who is willing address this topic in a quantitative manner, this book provides an excellent start. Ralf Blossey captures the complexity of chromatin biology in several well-chosen topics and builds physical models to explain a wide variety of recent experimental observations. And for those who want to go further, the book is larded with references that will guide you in right direction.

- Prof. John van Noort, Biological and Soft Matter Physics, Leiden University, The Netherlands

This book will prove to be extremely useful and motivating for any scientist, student or newcomer interested in the growing field of genomics and epigenetics. It illustrates the need for interdisciplinary approaches to tackle one of the main challenge in cell biology: understanding how chromatin is spatially and dynamically organized in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells and how this affects genome structure and function. This book clearly shows that when using concepts, methodologies, numerical and experimental techniques from statistical mechanics and nonlinear physics, one can shed a new light on the multi-scale and –time mechanisms involved in chromatin mediated regulation of nuclear functions, including transcription, replication, and repair. The main strength of the manuscript is the inclusion in each chapter of specific examples that are not only discussed but analytically and/or numerically treated. These examples give nice illustrations of how the different orders of packaging in the hierarchical organization of DNA in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, from the nucleosomal structure to the chromatin fiber and chromatin loops, condition (i) the accessibility of DNA sequence elements to cis- and transacting factors controlling regulatory functions, and (ii) the epigenetic regulation of the genome via chromatin marks, histone tail modifications and chromatin remodelers. This book does not pretend to provide a comprehensive and synthetic view of a field which is quite dynamically alive but only emerging. It should be considered as providing an initial journey for readers with theoretical and computational background knowledge and expertise to the centre of the spatio-temporal complexity of the eukaryotic cell nucleus.

-Alain Arneodo, Université de Bordeaux

This book provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of chromatin structure and dynamics and how it relates to gene regulation. It should prove to be very useful both for biologist who wish to know more about the physics inside the nucleus and physicists who want to get involved in chromatin research.

- Christophe Lavelle, Research scientist and co-head of the Nuclear Architecture and Dynamics network, National Center for Scientific Research, France.

Chromatin: Structure, Dynamics, Regulation (the latest addition to the outstanding Chapman & Hall ‘Mathematical and Computational Biology’ series) is an unreservedly and highly recommended and core addition to professional, corporate, and academic library Contemporary Biology collections in general, and should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academicians, genetics researchers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that Chromatin: Structure, Dynamics, Regulation is also available in digital book format.

- James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review, September 2017