Linear chromatin is compacted into eukaryotic nucleus through a complex and multi-layered architecture. Consequently, chromatin conformation in a local or long-distance manner is strongly correlated with gene expression. Chromosome conformation capture (3C) technology, together with its variants like 4C/5C/Hi-C, has been well developed to study chromatin looping and whole genome structure. In this review, we introduce new technologies including chromosome capture combined with immunoprecipitation, nuclei acid-based hybridization, single cell and genome sequencing, as well as their application.
线性染色质经过多重折叠凝缩到真核生物的细胞核中，染色质的三维构象直接决定了真核生物的基因表达，因此染色质可以在局部或远程空间上发生互作调控基因转录。折叠成环状构象的染色质可以借助染色质构象捕获 (Chromosome conformation capture，3C) 技术来研究，基于3C 技术扩展的4C/5C/Hi-C 从单个位点延伸到全基因组捕捉三维构象，在此基础上，染色质构象核心技术可以与免疫共沉淀、核酸分子杂交、单细胞、基因组测序等技术偶联而产生新的衍生技术和应用，这极大地推动了染色质构象技术在基因时空特异性表达调控上的研究。文中将以3C 和Hi-C 等三维基因组核心技术为基础，重点介绍染色质构象捕获及其衍生技术的原理和前沿应用。.
Keywords: chromatin immunoprecipitation; chromatin interaction analysis by paired-end tag sequencing; chromosome conformation capture; high-throughput chromatin conformation capture; three-dimension genome.