Tapas K Kundu is Assistant Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. His group is working on the role of chromatin remodeling in chromatin organization and transcription regulations with special emphasis on human disease.

Hari Kishore A has completed his Masters in Biochemistry from University of Mysore and is currently working as a Research and Development Assistant in the Transcription and Disease Laboratory at JNCASR, Bangalore.

In this article, we discuss the dynamic organization of eukaryotic genes into chromatin. Remodeling of chromatin confers it the ability for dynamic change. Remodeling is essential for transcriptional regulation, the first step of gene expression.

Transcription is the first step of gene expression in which RNA synthesis occurs from the DNA (gene) template in a series of complex biochemical reactions. In eukaryotes there are three types of RNA polymerases (RNA Pol I, II and III), to synthesize different types of RNA, required for diverse cellular processes. Among these, RNA Polymerase II catalyzes the synthesis of mRNA (RNA that code for proteins). There are more than fifty different proteins involved in the synthesis of mRNA from the DNA template. However, eukaryotic DNA (gene) is not present as open DNA in the cell; rather it is packaged into a highly compact and condensed nucleoprotein structure called chromatin in order to confine the enormous length of DNA to the nucleus.

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Address for Correspondence

Hari Kishore A and
Tapas K Kundu

Transcription and Disease laboratory
Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for
Advanced Scientific Research
Jakkur Bangalore 560 064, India
Email: tapas@jncasr.ac.in