Abstract Vera Pancaldi

Vera Pancaldi (CRCT, Toulouse)

Title: From social networks to characterizing the genome in 3D

Recent technological advances have allowed us to map chromatin conformation and uncover the spatial organization of the genome inside the nucleus. These experiments have revealed the complexities of genome folding, characterized by the presence of loops and domains at different scales which can change across development and in different cell types. There is strong evidence for a relationship between the topological properties of the chromatin contacts and cellular phenotype, the details of which are being actively investigated.

We describe chromatin contact maps produced by chromosome conformation capture experiments as networks of genomic fragments and we borrow social network theory approaches to characterize genome organization in different cell types. More specifically we have measured assortativity of chromatin regions with different features (histone modifications, binding of specific TFs, replication properties and gene expression variability) to expose biologically relevant 3D clustering of these regions. We will also present ongoing efforts to define phenotypes as emergent properties of epigenomic complex networks.