In this paper, we present a general statistical framework that is widely applicable to the analysis of genomic contact maps, irrespective of the data acquisition and normalization processes. Within this framework DNA–DNA contact data are represented as a complex network where DNA segments and contacts between them are denoted as nodes and edges, respectively. We also present a robust method for generating randomized contact networks that explicitly take into account the inherent 3D nature of the genome and serve as realistic null-models for unbiased statistical analyses. Our paper was chosen as a featured article by NAR. The paper by Kai Kruse et al can be found here.
