It has long been appreciated that chromosomes do not lay passively in the nucleus, but are dynamically reorganized to suit the cell's needs. Chromosomes condense into compact bodies for cell division, decondense in interphase to allow gene expression, and pair along their lengths during meiosis in preparation for the reductional division. Chromosome behavior can be broadly classified into two types: autonomous and nonautonomous. Autonomous behavior is seen at the chromosome level and below, and involves only the chromosomes themselves, as in the examples given above. Nonautonomous behavior involves physical interactions between the chromosomes and the rest of the cell and results in global changes in the organization of the chromosomes. The best known example of nonautonomous chromosome behavior may be the orchestration of chromosome movement at mitosis through interaction with the spindle microtubules. However, in recent years the study of chromosome behavior in interphase and meiotic prophase has revealed many roles for global, nonautonomous reorganization of chromosomes within the nucleus.
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Cowan et al. (2001) studied this question.