Spatial organization of chromosomes leads to heterogeneous chromatin motion and drives the liquid- or gel-like dynamical behavior of chromatin

Compaction leads to anomalous behavior. (A) Comparison of the predicted Hi-C map (top) and the corresponding time-evolution of the diffusion exponent (bottom) for the mouse Chr 1:128.36–130.88 Mbp region, which includes a 1.52-Mbp-long TAD. (B) MSD for three monomers annotated in A (red: m #1 at the border of TAD, blue: m #2 at the middle of the TAD, green: m #3 outside the TAD) and average MSD for all the monomers inside the TAD. (C,D) As in A and B but for the Drosophila Chr 2L:15.64–16.4 Mbp region, which includes a 460-kb-long TAD. (E) Typical average MSDs for a TAD predicted by the homopolymer and heteropolymer models (top) and the time-evolution of the diffusion exponent (bottom). For the heteropolymer curve, we computed the minimum exponent α_min, the corresponding time t_min, and the expected diffusion exponent α^N in the homopolymer model at t_min. (F) against for Drosophila and mice. The symbols are colored by the TAD length, L. (G) t_min as a function of TAD length for Drosophila and mice. Symbols are colored by the compaction level of TADs .