Samantha J. Falk

TL;DR: This work finds that CENP-C affects nucleosome shape and dynamics in a manner analogous to allosteric regulation of enzymes, and is a prime candidate to stabilize centromeric chromatin.

TL;DR: It is proposed that amplified repetitive sequences act as selfish elements by promoting expansion of CENP-A chromatin and increased transmission through the female germline by bias their segregation to the egg relative to centromeres with fewer repeats.

TL;DR: The model that is generated to explain the CENP-A–nucleosome transition provides an example of a shape change imposed by external binding proteins and has notable implications for understanding of the epigenetic basis of the faithful inheritance of centromere location on chromosomes.

TL;DR: A novel hybrid single molecule approach combining stochastic data analysis with fluorescence correlation that enables investigations of sub-ms unsynchronized structural dynamics of macromolecules and reports the first direct evidence of spontaneous DNA motions at the nucleosome termini.

TL;DR: Advances in the identification and characterization of proteins that form the centromere are described, and recent findings that have advanced the understanding of the assembly of functional centromeric chromatin are focused on.