New imaging techniques have produced stunning 3D models of an X chromosome that, contrary to what’s taught in biology class, isn’t actually shaped like an X — or at least not for very long.
Using DNA sequencers, researchers at the Babraham Institute and the University of Cambridge in the UK and the Weizmann Institute in Israel, created thousands of molecular measurements of chromosomes in single cells. Then they combined them all using powerful computers to produce 3D visualizations of chromosomes and the path of DNA inside of them.
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They published their work online this week in the journal Nature.
The ability to map the path of DNA in the chromosome is an important step in understanding the structure and function of chromosomes, according to one of the study’s authors, Peter Fraser.
“Putting DNA into its proper context like this is important because the folding of DNA and the positions of genes on the chromosome contribute to genome control,” he says in the above video from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Fraser added that, contrary to popular belief, chromosomes only maintain the shape of an X for a short period of time right before they divide.
