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interesting, but...

Posted by Stevo on 27 Jul 2011 at 12:11 GMT

This is a nice paper, and I like the comparison between large scale and small scale decondensation. However, the labelling of single chromosomes or large segments of them with photoactivation of tagged histones to study condensation was already published here:
Mora-Bermudez et al. (2007). Maximal chromosome compaction occurs by axial shortening in anaphase and depends on Aurora kinase. Nature Cell Biology 9, 822 - 831.

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RE: mitotic segments

Jonathan_Chubb replied to Stevo on 03 Aug 2011 at 14:29 GMT

Thanks for the feedback. The paper you mention, which I think is very interesting by the way, describes labelling of chromatid segments rather than whole chromosomes. The paper also concentrated on mitotic dynamics, whilst we were interested in labelling interphase chromosomes. There was overlap in some of the compaction/decompaction measurements, and these are in similar ranges. We discussed this in the paper. One important additional methodological difference is our use of H3-PAGFP rather than an H2B fusion. H2B has a faster turnover on chromatin than H3, so H3 is well suited to long term chromatin labelling, but H2B is obviously fine for mitosis.

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RE: RE: mitotic segments

Stevo replied to Jonathan_Chubb on 16 Aug 2011 at 16:53 GMT

The end goals of the study and the chosen histone are certainly different.
Regarding the method proposed as new itself, it is nevertheless very striking how similar figure 1A and the other paper's figure 2A are, in virtually all key aspects.

No competing interests declared.