Uniform dynamics of cohesin-mediated loop extrusion in living human cells

Most animal genomes are partitioned into topologically associating domains (TADs), created by cohesin-mediated loop extrusion and defined by convergently oriented CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) sites. The dynamics of loop extrusion and its regulation remain poorly characterized in vivo. Here we tracked the motion of TAD anchors in living human cells to visualize and quantify cohesin-dependent loop extrusion across multiple endogenous genomic regions. We show that TADs are dynamic structures whose anchors are brought in proximity about once per hour and for 6–19 min (~16% of the time). Moreover, TADs are continuously extruded by multiple cohesin complexes. Remarkably, despite strong differences in Hi-C patterns across chromatin regions, their dynamics is consistent with the same density, residence time and speed of cohesin. Our results suggest that TAD dynamics is primarily governed by the location and affinity of CTCF sites, enabling genome-wide predictive models of cohesin-dependent chromatin interactions.