Preprint on how an RNA-Binding Region (RBRi) in CTCF regulates clustering and chromatin looping is now published in Molecular Cell

Our preprint describing our functional characterization of an internal RNA-Binding Region (RBRi) in CTCF is online today in Molecular Cell.

• We show that CTCF self-associates in a largely RNA-dependent and DNA-independent manner
  
• When we delete the RBRi in CTCF endogenously in mESCs, the cells get very sick, suggesting its functional important.
  
• RBRi-del-CTCF shows substantially lower clustering in cells
  
• RBRi-del-mESCs have lost about 1/3-1/2 of all chromatin loops
  
• CTCF binding sites and CTCF loops fall into at least 2 distinct classes: RBRi-dependent or RBRi-independent
  

Overall, we believe our discovery of distinct classes of chromatin loops highlights a key future question: what are the mechanistic differences between these sites?
Also check out a similar story published back-to-back.