Rotational settings quantize nucleosome movement by chromatin regulators.

DNA sequence intrinsically guides nucleosome rotational positioning across yeast to mammals, with 10 bp dinucleotide patterns influencing nucleosome structure.

• Why it matters: Understanding the mechanisms behind nucleosome positioning is crucial for gene regulation and genomic stability, challenging the idea that chromatin regulators solely determine nucleosome landscapes.
• What they did: The study examined nucleosome structure in vitro, yeast, and mammalian cells, showing that weak translational settings display strong rotational preferences, and heterologous DNA sequences follow the same rules, indicating causality.
• The result: Findings suggest DNA creates an energy landscape for rotational settings, and chromatin regulators modulate, rather than override, these intrinsic DNA-guided preferences, refining models of nucleosome positioning.