Coming to terms with chromatin structure

Chromatin, once thought to serve only as a means to package DNA, is now recognized as a major regulator of gene activity. As a result of the wide range of methods used to describe the numerous levels of chromatin organization, the terminology that has emerged to describe these organizational states is often imprecise and sometimes misleading. In this review, we discuss our current understanding of chromatin architecture and propose terms to describe the various biochemical and structural states of chromatin.