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Fig. 3. | BMC Biology

Fig. 3.

From: Quantitative imaging of mammalian transcriptional dynamics: from single cells to whole embryos

Fig. 3.

Spatial modes of organizing mammalian transcriptional dynamics. a A super-resolution map of RNAP II distribution inside a mammalian cell nucleus. Inset shows a zoom-in area illustrating the co-existence of both isolated RNAP II molecules (left) as well as transient clusters (“transcription factories”, right) that coordinate the expression of spatially disparate genes. b When the angles between successive translocation steps of TF molecules during target search are measured by SMT, P-TEFb (blue) exhibits substantial asymmetry (evidenced by the strong bias toward 180° in the angular distribution and the negative asymmetry coefficient), indicating a propensity to “back-stepping” due to spatial constraints of the search process. In contrast, c-Myc (orange) explores the nuclear space more or less unhindered with no preferred directionality (evidenced by the near-zero asymmetry coefficient). c Modulating transcription through oscillatory nucleo-cytoplasmic translocation of NF-κB; single-cell snapshots of nuclear NF-κB level at representative time points are depicted in insets. Adapted from [12] (a), [69] (b), and [101] (c) with modifications

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