Investigating the role of chromatin remodellers in difficult-to-replicate regions of genomes.

The DNA blueprint that defines the characteristics of eukaryotic organisms is made up of Chromatin; DNA and its histone 'wrapping'. Chromatin is the substrate that the replication machinery must travel through to make a second copy. Dense portions of chromatin, known as heterochromatin, are replicated at different speeds than more open areas. Here we intend to map the regions of the genome most sensitive to loss of particular protein activities that are able to move the histone wrapping and help replication machinery through more difficult regions. These findings are critical to our understanding of how genomes are accurately remade at each cell division.