Cohesin Degradation Eliminates Loop Domains

Figure 1. Juicebox.js makes it easy to share interactive visualizations of contact mapping data derived from Hi-C and other experiments. Hi-C maps from new experiments can be easily added and juxtaposed with tracks from ENCODE and other sources. It is possible to zoom in and out in real-time using either a mouse or touch-screen gestures. Display parameters like the color scale and the normalization can be adjusted interactively. The complete state of the browser can always be encoded as a sharable URL. No programming is necessary to share and explore new datasets. Left: A loop resolution Hi-C map showing all contacts within an 700kb genomic interval, generated using HCT-116 human colorectal carcinoma cells. Loops, which form here due to physical tethering between two CTCF- and cohesin-bound loci, manifest as bright peaks away from the diagonal. Contact domains, genomic intervals that exhibit enhanced contact frequency within themselves, manifest as bright squares along the diagonal. When the two anchors of a loop demarcate a contact domain, the resulting feature is called a "loop domain". Right: The same region in HCT-116 cells after the RAD21 subunit of the cohesin complex has been degraded using an auxininducible degron system. The loop domains all disappear completely, demonstrating that they are dependent on cohesin.