In Futurism, Kristin Houser outlines an approach for mapping the 3D structure of the human genome.
Using "tyramide signal amplification sequencing," or TSA-Seq, she explains, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign-led team mapped chromosomal distances from nuclear structures known as "nuclear speckles" in leukemia cells — work they reported in the Journal of Cell Biology yesterday.
"Eventually, the researchers hope to map the 3D positions of genes in other types of cells, focusing on how the positions might change as the cells age or become diseased," Houser notes. "The more we learn about the structure of the human genome, the better equipped we'll be to eventually write a genome of our own."