Prof. Richard Inho Joh
Department of Physics
Virginia Commonwealth University

Abstract

Cells often alter the expression of hundreds to thousands of genes in response to stress. Recent discoveries have revealed that both 1D and 3D genome organization play key roles in regulating gene expression. However, how these organizational features facilitate coordinated transcription of functionally diverse genes—particularly those located on different chromosomes—remains largely unknown. In our study, we analyzed the genomes of a wide range of eukaryotes, from yeast to plants to humans, and identified thousands of conserved and species-specific clusters of functionally disparate gene groups. Our findings suggest that system-level transcriptional coordination is frequently mediated by the physical colocalization of regulatory elements, such as transcription factors. We propose that the spatial clustering of these regulatory nodes may represent a conserved strategy for assembling coregulated, tunable modulons in eukaryotic genomes.

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