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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2013 Feb 17;20(3):387–395. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2509

Figure 8. Relationship between transcription, DNA supercoiling and large-scale chromatin structures.

Figure 8

Transcriptionally inactive chromatin is topologically over-wound and has a cytologically compact large scale chromatin structure. In contrast transcriptionally active regions or transcriptional activation alters DNA supercoiling, remodeling supercoiling domains and is accompanied by a decompaction of large scale chromatin structures. Therefore, large structural domains, for example as described by Hi-C31, are subdivided into smaller transcription dependent supercoiling domains providing an additional level of functional organization within the human genome.