Motivation: Many DNA-binding proteins recognize their target sequences indirectly, by sensing DNA's response to mechanical distortion. ThreaDNA estimates this response based on high-resolution structures of the protein-DNA complex of interest. Implementing an efficient nanoscale modeling of DNA deformations involving essentially no adjustable parameters, it returns the profile of deformation energy along whole genomes, at base-pair resolution, within minutes on usual laptop/desktop computers. Our predictions can also be easily combined with estimations of direct selectivity through a generalized form of position-weight-matrices. The formalism of ThreaDNA is accessible to a wide audience. Results: We demonstrate the importance of indirect readout for the nucleosome as well as the bacterial regulators Fis and CRP. Combined with the direct contribution provided by usual sequence motifs, it significantly improves the prediction of sequence selectivity, and allows quantifying the two distinct physical mechanisms underlying it. Availability and implementation: Python software available at bioinfo.insa-lyon.fr, natively executable on Linux/MacOS systems with a user-friendly graphical interface. Galaxy webserver version available. Contact: [email protected]. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

In higher eukaryotes, replication program specification in different cell types remains to be fully understood. We show for seven human cell lines that about half of the genome is divided in domains that display a characteristic U-shaped replication timing profile with early initiation zones at borders and late replication at centers. Significant overlap is observed between U-domains of different cell lines and also with germline replication domains exhibiting a N-shaped nucleotide compositional skew. From the demonstration that the average fork polarity is directly reflected by both the compositional skew and the derivative of the replication timing profile, we argue that the fact that this derivative displays a N-shape in U-domains sustains the existence of large-scale gradients of replication fork polarity in somatic and germline cells. Analysis of chromatin interaction (Hi-C) and chromatin marker data reveals that U-domains correspond to high-order chromatin structural units. We discuss possible models for replication origin activation within U/N-domains. The compartmentalization of the genome into replication U/N-domains provides new insights on the organization of the replication program in the human genome.