Focus research 2022 NetB(IO)² team

Studying 3D DNA in the nucleus

The NetB(IO)² team has been studying the organization of DNA in 3D for many years, using analogies that represent DNA regions as nodes in a network that are connected if they are close together, just as a social network has links between people who know each other. This network is very important in the case of cancer, as cancer cells sometimes show alterations, not in the genes, but in the switches.
In a recent paper, the team used the network of connections between genes and switches, which can be viewed on the GARDEN-NET web, to identify a new biomarker in large T-cell lymphocytic leukemia. Another application of this network analogy enabled the team to discover how DNA replication – the process that makes one copy of DNA before the cell divides – is organized three-dimensionally, potentially exploiting the same organization used for gene regulation.

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