Fig. 4: 3D diffusion of a chromosomal locus.

Midway locus MSD as a function of time lag along the cell’s (a), long and (b), radial axes. Data points in green are based on seconds time scale experiments (300–30,000 ms between trajectory frames), and data points in blue are based on minute time scale experiments (2 min between trajectory frames). Data points in green show averages of 5 experiments and data points in blue show averages of 2 experiments. Error bars correspond to standard error of the mean. Black dashed lines show linear fits to the logarithm of the MSD values (Long axis slope (with 95% confidence interval): 0.4049 (0.3872, 0.4226). Radial axis slope (with 95% confidence interval): 0.1116 (0.104, 0.1192)). The red dashed line indicates a plateau estimated as the mean of radial MSD values for the five longest time lags. Trajectory long axis coordinates were set to have the same starting point and their mean movement due to cell growth was subtracted before MSD estimation. Long axis MSDs estimated without net movement subtraction are shown in Supplementary Fig. 13a. The MSD values are based on >=167 trajectories. c Variances of the population-based distribution (Fig. 3b, Supplementary Fig. 12 (Midway)) along the cell’s long axis as a function of cell area. Black and gray data points correspond to variance estimates from two different experiments. d Histogram from the yz-plane 2D histogram (Fig. 3b) along depth axis bin 0. Black curve corresponds to a bimodal normal distribution fit of the histogram (σ = 130 nm). Red curve corresponds to a bimodal normal distribution with the same amplitude and mean as the histogram fit, but with a variance estimated as the mean of the radial MSDs for the five longest time lags (σ = 110 nm, red dashed line in Fig. 4b). Statistics can be found in Dataset S1.