Oral Presentation 39th Annual Lorne Genome Conference 2018

Imaging chromatin dynamics during the DNA damage response by FLIM-FRET microscopy (#4)

Elizabeth Hinde 1 2 , Jieqiong Lou 1 , Belinda Wright 2 , Tara K Bartolek 3 , Tony Cesare 3
  1. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. EMBL Australia node in Single Molecule Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. Genomic Integrity Group, Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead, NSW, Australia

Chromatin dynamics modulate DNA repair factor accessibility throughout the DNA damage response. The spatiotemporal scale upon which these dynamics occur render them invisible to live cell imaging. Here we employ fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) for FRET detection of nucleosome arrangement in live cells and monitor the structural rearrangements of chromatin during DNA repair. With this technology we demonstrate that genomic double strand breaks induce both local and global condensation events in the chromatin network and the detected chromatin dynamics facilitate DNA repair factor recruitment specifically to the lesion site.