Gene regulation is influenced by chromatin conformation. Current models suggest that topologically associating domains (TADs) act as regulatory units, which could also include distinct co-expression domains (CODs) favouring correlated gene expression. We integrated publicly available RNA-seq, ChIP-seq and Hi-C data from A549 cells stimulated with the glucocorticoid dexamethasone to explore how differentially expressed genes are co-regulated among TADs and CODs. Interestingly, we found that gene position and orientation also impact co-regulation. Indeed, divergent and convergent pairs of genes we enriched at sub-TAD boundaries, forming distinct CODs. We also found that genes at COD boundaries were less likely to be separated by structural proteins such as Cohesin and CTCF. A complementary analysis of lung expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) demonstrated that genes affected by the same variant were more likely to be found on the same strand while lacking a TAD boundary. Taken together, these results suggest…

This chapter focuses on dynamics and control in cellular reactions. The equations of motion at the metabolic level are derived from the application of…