Fig. 4.

Process of microphase separation explains compartmentalization in chromosomes. The MEGABASE + MiChroM hypothesizes that chromatin characterized by homogeneous epigenetic markings undergoes a process similar to phase separation under the action of the proteome present in the nucleus. In simulations, we observe that segments of chromatin belonging to the same structural type tend to segregate, forming liquid droplets, which rearrange dynamically by splitting and fusing. This simple process of phase separation is sufficient to explain the emergence of compartmentalization in genomes as observed in DNA-DNA ligation assays and microscopy experiments.