[How genomic approaches help the understanding of the initiation of DNA replication]

Abstract

Eukaryotic DNA replication starts at multiple sites distributed throughout the genome called origins of replication. The identification of the position of these origins in the genome, as well as the description of their sequence features and chromatin structure, have been the center of many studies over the last years. A handful of sophisticated methods has been developed to capture replication initiation events, to detect replication factors binding sites onto the chromatin and to computationally analyze these data at the genome scale. Yet, we remain far from fully understanding how these origins of replication are specified in the genome and how DNA replication initiation is regulated. The aim of this review is to provide the reader with a detailed and curated list of the latest findings regarding the nature of origins of replication in the human genome.