3 February at 3 pm. in the CN hall, Dr Adriana Magalska from the Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Cell Motility of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS will give a lecture entitled “Journey to the Centre of the Nucleus”. Her habilitation is processed by the Scientific Council of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology.

Abstract:

The cell nucleus is a highly organized organelle composed of many functional and structural domains. One of the fundamental questions in the field of biology is how a two-meter-long strand of DNA is packed into a nucleus with a diameter of 10 µm. Each year advanced microscopic techniques, combined with the development of biochemical and computational methods, bring us closer to answering this question.

Chromatin is not randomly distributed in the nucleus, and it undergoes continuous structural changes, mostly by changing the degree of its packaging through condensation and decondensation. The three-dimensional chromatin structure is an important level of epigenetic regulation of gene expression, and the domain organization of the genome allows for functional separation of the transcriptionally active euchromatin from the parts of the genome in which gene expression is permanently or temporarily suppressed.

Using various research models, ranging from the extracellular in vitro system, through primary cellular cultures, to transgenic animals allowed us to look at the three-dimensional structure of chromatin and its importance for cell physiology from different perspectives.