https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-022-00185-3
Regular Article - Living Systems
Inter-nucleosomal potentials from nucleosomal positioning data
1
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Heidelberg University, Philosophenweg 19, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany
2
Department of Basic Science, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rua Doutor Sílvio Henrique Braune 22, Centro, 28625-650, Nova Friburgo, Brazil
3
Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, School of Computational and Integrative Sciences (SCIS) Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
d
heermann@tphys.uni-heidelberg.de
Received:
7
January
2022
Accepted:
17
March
2022
Published online:
11
April
2022
No systematic method exists to derive inter-nucleosomal potentials between nucleosomes along a chromosome consistently across a given genome. Such potentials can yield information on nucleosomal ordering, thermal as well as mechanical properties of chromosomes. Thus, indirectly, they shed light on a possible mechanical genomic code along a chromosome. To develop a method yielding effective inter-nucleosomal potentials between nucleosomes, a generalized Lennard-Jones potential for the parameterization is developed based on nucleosomal positioning data. This approach eliminates some of the problems that the underlying nucleosomal positioning data have, rendering the extraction difficult on the individual nucleosomal level. Furthermore, patterns on which to base a classification along a chromosome appear on larger domains, such as hetero- and euchromatin. An intuitive selection strategy for the noisy optimization problem is employed to derive effective exponents for the generalized potential. The method is tested on the Candida albicans genome. Applying k-means clustering based on potential parameters and thermodynamic compressibilities, a genome-wide clustering of nucleosome sequences is obtained for C. albicans. This clustering shows that a chromosome beyond the classical dichotomic categories of hetero- and euchromatin is more feature-rich.
© The Author(s) 2022
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