Taken together, this evidence demonstrates SCH772984 order that, although long-range interactions of chromatin regulated by PcG proteins were firstly shown in Drosophila, this phenomenon is evolutionary conserved and is probably deeply affecting gene regulation processes in animal and plant cells. To summarize, genomes are locally organized in TADs matching genomic regions covered with a specific set of histone marks. Adjacent TADs are well separated from each other and long-range interactions only occur between TADs having the same chromatin signature (Figure 2). With regard to this interpretation, one should keep in mind that, although many long-range interactions

have been identified at all scales with 3C based technologies, microscopy approaches show that their frequency is mostly low in cell populations. Recently, single-cell Hi-C technology has allowed the comparison of single-cell measurements and Hi-C results relying on millions of cells. Single-cell Hi-C experiments highlight the cell to cell variability of chromosome structures at larger scale, whereas individual chromosomes maintain domain

organization at the megabase scale [54••]. Hence, at local scale chromosome folding in the cell nucleus seems to rely on TADs which would form in every cell, whereas long-range interactions between them are probabilistic. One could thus suggest that TADs form chromosomal modules that represent the key units of gene regulation. In this view, cis-regulatory CX-5461 in vitro Methocarbamol elements belonging to one module would be dependent on one another, whereas separated TADs would have independent regulation. Consistently, integrations of a GFP reporter transgene in mammalian cell lines produced expression levels that correspond to the activity of the domains of insertion, rather than on the gene flanking the insertion point [55]. Similarly, insertion of a transposon-associated sensor at random genomic positions in mice identified long-range chromosomal regulatory activities, forming

overlapping domains with tissue-specific expression [56]. Finally, long-range interactions between TADs of similar chromatin types suggests that, despite partial insulation of each TAD, each genomic locus may be affected by many others in its regulation, suggesting that the genome is more than just a linear succession of discrete genomic elements. Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as: • of special interest We wish to thank Cyril Sarrauste for artwork. We apologize to the many colleagues whose interesting work we could not cite for space limitations. Research at the G.C. lab was supported by grants from the European Research Council (ERC-2008-AdG no. 232947), the CNRS, the European Network of Excellence EpiGeneSys, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (iPolycomb) and by the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer.