Introduction
With the completion of the human genome-sequencing project, it is now more apparent than ever before that we are only at the very beginning stages of understanding the mechanistic complexity required to regulate genomic functions. At the cornerstone are epigenetic mechanisms, which regulate the heritable activation and silencing of specific sets of genes. They function by directly regulating the architecture of chromatin—the packaged form of DNA in the nucleus. Currently, it is not possible to visualize the dynamic interactions of regulatory factors with single-copy endogenous genes in single cells. Insights have been largely gained using methodologies which provide only static images of genes. Therefore, our current understanding of how epigenetic and transcriptional regulatory factors are coordinated and regulated at chromatin is essentially a “black box.”
