Shaping up the embryo: The role of genome 3D organization

Abstract

The spatial organization of the chromatinized genome inside the cell nucleus impacts genomic function. In transcription, the hierarchical genome structure creates spatial regulatory landscapes, in which modulating elements like enhancers can contact their target genes and activate their expression, as a result of restricting their exploration to a specific topological neighbourhood. Here we describe exciting recent findings obtained through “C” technologies in pluripotent cells and early embryogenesis and emphasize some of the key unanswered questions arising from them.