Exploring the three-dimensional organization of genomes: interpreting chromatin interaction data

TLDR: Several types of statistical and computational approaches that have recently been developed to analyse chromatin interaction data are described.

Abstract: How DNA is organized in three dimensions inside the cell nucleus and how that affects the ways in which cells access, read and interpret genetic information are among the longest standing questions in cell biology. Using newly developed molecular, genomic, and computational approaches based on the chromosome conformation capture technology (such as 3C, 4C, 5C and Hi-C) the spatial organization of genomes is being explored at unprecedented resolution. Interpreting the increasingly large chromatin interaction datasets is now posing novel challenges. Here we describe several types of statistical and computational approaches that have recently been developed to analyze chromatin interaction data.