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Okesemilore Mary

Why are GC-rich regions less condensed than GC-poor regions?

Dennis Ainsworth  Follow

Chromosome condensation seems to be primarily driven by epigenetic factors like methylation and histone modifications, not GC content. However, high GC content is associated with gene rich regions and gene expression generally requires open chromatin. In other words high GC content correlates with genes, and genes being expressed correlate with open chromatin, so high GC content correlates with open chromatin, but isn't necessarily causal.

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Jackie Howe Janssen  Follow
@ThoH.Ho The question you ask in the comment is a completely different one from the question you originally posted. I suggest you ask a new question and specifically mention the giemsa stain. The dye used for the giemsa stain specifically binds to AT base pairs and this creates the banding. This has nothing to do with chromatin condensation.More
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Fabrice Arfi  Follow
Thank you. I highly appreciate your point of view. There's only one thing, I'd like to hear your opinion on this, that the reason I asked this question is because of the G-banding. When people stain the chromosome using Giemsa solution, the cell is mostly in prometaphase or metaphase. Expression regulation should be very low at this stage, chromosomes should be condensed at a same level. So why they are stained differently while they are all condensed (metaphase)?More
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David Johns  Follow
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