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Cryo-nanoscale chromosome imaging—future prospects

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Abstract

The high-order structure of mitotic chromosomes remains to be fully elucidated. How nucleosomes compact at various structural levels into a condensed mitotic chromosome is unclear. Cryogenic preservation and imaging have been applied for over three decades, keeping biological structures close to the native in vivo state. Despite being extensively utilized, this field is still wide open for mitotic chromosome research. In this review, we focus specifically on cryogenic efforts for determining the mitotic nanoscale chromatin structures. We describe vitrification methods, current status, and applications of advanced cryo-microscopy including future tools required for resolving the native architecture of these fascinating structures that hold the instructions to life.

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  • 13 October 2020

    A correction to this paper has been published: <ExternalRef><RefSource>https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-020-00767-5</RefSource><RefTarget Address="10.1007/s12551-020-00767-5" TargetType="DOI"/></ExternalRef>.

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Funding

The Aga Khan University and generous donors provided financial support. Others include the Brookhaven National Laboratory supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-SC0012704. This work was partially supported by the UK BBSRC (BB/H022597/1) under a “Professorial Fellowship for imaging chromosomes by coherent X-ray diffraction”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, London, WC1H 0AH, UK

    Mohammed Yusuf & Ian Robinson

  2. Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, Aga Khan University, P.O.Box 3500, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan

    Mohammed Yusuf, Safana Farooq & El-Nasir Lalani

  3. Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, NY, 11973, USA

    Ian Robinson

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  1. Mohammed Yusuf
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The original online version of this article was revised: In the originally published article, the name of the 4th author was incorrectly presented as El-Naser Lalani. The correct name is El-Nasir Lalani, which is also given above.

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Yusuf, M., Farooq, S., Robinson, I. et al. Cryo-nanoscale chromosome imaging—future prospects. Biophys Rev 12, 1257–1263 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-020-00757-7

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