Near-atomistic simulations reveal the molecular principles that control chromatin structure and phase separation
Kieran Russell, Yifang Chen, Jorge R. Espinosa, David Farré-Gil, Huabin Zhou, M. Julia Maristany, Jose Ignacio Perez-Lopez, Jan Huertas, Modesto Orozco, Michael K. Rosen, Rosana Collepardo-Guevara · 2026
Read Near-atomistic simulations reveal the molecular principles that control chromatin structure and phase separation by Kieran Russell, Yifang Chen, Jorge R. Espinosa, David Farré-Gil, Huabin Zhou, M. Julia Maristany, Jose Ignacio Perez-Lopez, Jan Huertas, Modesto Orozco, Michael K. Rosen, Rosana Collepardo-Guevara (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13642264.txt.
Description
Kieran Russell and ten co-authors present in 2026 a simulation tool for chromatin, the packaged form of DNA. How DNA folds with its protein spools shapes which genes can be read, and the fibers can clump into droplets. Atom-by-atom simulation of such big systems is far too slow.
Their model, OpenCGChromatin, lumps small atom groups into beads yet keeps near-atomic detail, reaching systems ten times larger than before. It reproduces fiber shapes seen by electron imaging and the stability of droplets seen in lab tests. The runs reveal how spacer DNA length governs access to protein tails, and how certain chemical tags loosen packing in set patterns.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kieran Russell, Yifang Chen, Jorge R. Espinosa, David Farré-Gil, Huabin Zhou, M. Julia Maristany, Jose Ignacio Perez-Lopez, Jan Huertas, Modesto Orozco, Michael K. Rosen, Rosana Collepardo-Guevara |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 86 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |