Absolute quantification of cohesin and its regulators in human cells

The organisation of mammalian genomes into loops and topologically associated domains (TADs) regulates gene expression. The formation and maintenance of loops and TADs depends on the protein complex cohesin, which also holds replicated sister chromatids together from S phase until mitosis. To understand how cohesin functions, it is essential to know how many cohesin complexes and regulators exist in a typical cell and how they are distributed genome-wide. Here, we have used quantitative mass spectrometry, fluorescence-correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching to measure the absolute number and dynamics of core subunits and regulators of the cohesin complex in human cells. We find that 60000 – 134000 cohesin complexes are bound to chromatin per G1 HeLa cell, suggesting that cohesin most likely does not occupy all its binding sites concurrently. We incorporate our data into mathematical models and discuss implications for how cohesin might contribute to genome organisation and sister chromatid cohesion.