Single-molecule decoding of combinatorially modified nucleosomes

Abstract

Deciphering the histone code Regulatory information is stored both in DNA sequences and in the chromatin proteins that package the genome. The covalent modification of histones plays a critical role in signaling whether a gene or genomic region should be active or inactive. Shema et al. used high-throughput single-molecule imaging to reveal the different combinations of modifications on millions of individual nucleosomes. Single-molecule DNA sequencing determined the exact location of these modified nucleosomes in the genome. Science , this issue p. 717