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Scientists discover that lying may cause changes in 3D chromatin organization. A team led by Prof Hairy Wing has found that the recent leakage of hair dye from Giuliani’s sideburns could have been caused by a decrease in insulation leading to a weakening of a TAD boundary
This then resulted in a decrease of interactions between the dye and the adjacent hair. Asked about the news, @erezaterez suggested that, mechanistically, it would be important to find out if the disruption affected CTCF loops or compartment domains
However, Prof Hairy Wing pointed out that any triangle at the diagonal is a TAD. “It is what it is”, he said. “TAD is a good name. I have 2 cats, 3 dogs, and a parrot, and they are all named TAD. When I call them for lunch, I only have to say TAD once and they all come”
Other scientists wondered whether there were also changes in compartments. Prof. Hairy Wing mentioned that, "even if 49% of compartments changed, a majority would not have changed and, therefore, the conclusion would be that there were no compartmental changes”
One problem with these studies is the low resolution of the Hi-C data. “ @4DNucleome didn’t fund our research and we had to support this work with a MIRA award from @NIGMS. We spent half of the budget just to sequence 1000 reads”
It is unclear whether other events, such as the one in the hotel room (below), could also be explained by weakening of insulator function. “In this case, the TADs may be too small and in a condensed region with low accessibility", Prof Hairy Wing said
This work may need a good microscope to see what is down there, if anything. "We would have to use the next 100 years of our MIRA grant to buy such microscope. This is better suited for wealthy @4DNucleome grantees” according to Prof Hairy Wing
