This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sun, F.-L.
Right arrow Articles by Elgin, S. C. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sun, F.-L.
Right arrow Articles by Elgin, S. C. R.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 2001, p. 2867-2879, Vol. 21, No. 8
0270-7306/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/MCB.21.8.2867-2879.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Long-Range Nucleosome Ordering Is Associated with Gene Silencing in Drosophila melanogaster Pericentric Heterochromatin

Fang-Lin Sun, Matthew H. Cuaycong,dagger and Sarah C. R. Elgin*

Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130

Received 21 September 2000/Returned for modification 31 October 2000/Accepted 26 January 2001

We have used line HS-2 of Drosophila melanogaster, carrying a silenced transgene in the pericentric heterochromatin, to investigate in detail the chromatin structure imposed by this environment. Digestion of the chromatin with micrococcal nuclease (MNase) shows a nucleosome array with extensive long-range order, indicating regular spacing, and with well-defined MNase cleavage fragments, indicating a smaller MNase target in the linker region. The repeating unit is ca. 10 bp larger than that observed for bulk Drosophila chromatin. The silenced transgene shows both a loss of DNase I-hypersensitive sites and decreased sensitivity to DNase I digestion within an array of nucleosomes lacking such sites; within such an array, sensitivity to digestion by MNase is unchanged. The ordered nucleosome array extends across the regulatory region of the transgene, a shift that could explain the loss of transgene expression in heterochromatin. Highly regular nucleosome arrays are observed over several endogenous heterochromatic sequences, indicating that this is a general feature of heterochromatin. However, genes normally active within heterochromatin (rolled and light) do not show this pattern, suggesting that the altered chromatin structure observed is associated with regions that are silent, rather than being a property of the domain as a whole. The results indicate that long-range nucleosomal ordering is linked with the heterochromatic packaging that imposes gene silencing.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biology, CB-1229, Washington University, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130. Phone: (314) 935-5348. Fax: (314) 935-5125. E-mail: selgin{at}biology.wustl.edu.

dagger Present address: UMDNJ-The New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07103.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 2001, p. 2867-2879, Vol. 21, No. 8
0270-7306/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/MCB.21.8.2867-2879.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Riddle, N. C., Leung, W., Haynes, K. A., Granok, H., Wuller, J., Elgin, S. C. R. (2008). An Investigation of Heterochromatin Domains on the Fourth Chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 178: 1177-1191 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Sripathy, S. P., Stevens, J., Schultz, D. C. (2006). The KAP1 Corepressor Functions To Coordinate the Assembly of De Novo HP1-Demarcated Microenvironments of Heterochromatin Required for KRAB Zinc Finger Protein-Mediated Transcriptional Repression. Mol. Cell. Biol. 26: 8623-8638 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Valley, C. M., Pertz, L. M., Balakumaran, B. S., Willard, H. F. (2006). Chromosome-wide, allele-specific analysis of the histone code on the human X chromosome. Hum Mol Genet 15: 2335-2347 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Fire, A., Alcazar, R., Tan, F. (2006). Unusual DNA Structures Associated With Germline Genetic Activity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 173: 1259-1273 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Dalal, Y., Fleury, T. J., Cioffi, A., Stein, A. (2005). Long-range oscillation in a periodic DNA sequence motif may influence nucleosome array formation. Nucleic Acids Res 33: 934-945 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Sun, F.-L., Haynes, K., Simpson, C. L., Lee, S. D., Collins, L., Wuller, J., Eissenberg, J. C., Elgin, S. C. R. (2004). cis-Acting Determinants of Heterochromatin Formation on Drosophila melanogaster Chromosome Four. Mol. Cell. Biol. 24: 8210-8220 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Shestakova, E. A., Mansuroglu, Z., Mokrani, H., Ghinea, N., Bonnefoy, E. (2004). Transcription factor YY1 associates with pericentromeric {gamma}-satellite DNA in cycling but not in quiescent (G0) cells. Nucleic Acids Res 32: 4390-4399 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Danzer, J. R., Wallrath, L. L. (2004). Mechanisms of HP1-mediated gene silencing in Drosophila. Development 131: 3571-3580 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Oki, M., Valenzuela, L., Chiba, T., Ito, T., Kamakaka, R. T. (2004). Barrier Proteins Remodel and Modify Chromatin To Restrict Silenced Domains. Mol. Cell. Biol. 24: 1956-1967 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • HAYNES, K.A., LEIBOVITCH, B.A., RANGWALA, S.H., CRAIG, C., ELGIN, S.C.R. (2004). Analyzing Heterochromatin Formation Using Chromosome 4 of Drosophila melanogaster. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 69: 267-272 [Abstract]  
  • Jiang, G., Yang, F., van Overveld, P. G. M., Vedanarayanan, V., van der Maarel, S., Ehrlich, M. (2003). Testing the position-effect variegation hypothesis for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy by analysis of histone modification and gene expression in subtelomeric 4q. Hum Mol Genet 12: 2909-2921 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Li, Y., Danzer, J. R., Alvarez, P., Belmont, A. S., Wallrath, L. L. (2003). Effects of tethering HP1 to euchromatic regions of the Drosophila genome. Development 130: 1817-1824 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Koryakov, D. E., Domanitskaya, E. V., Belyakin, S. N., Zhimulev, I. F. (2003). Abnormal tissue-dependent polytenization of a block of chromosome 3 pericentric heterochromatin in Drosophila melanogaster. J. Cell Sci. 116: 1035-1044 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Shaffer, C. D., Stephens, G. E., Thompson, B. A., Funches, L., Bernat, J. A., Craig, C. A., Elgin, S. C. R. (2002). Heterochromatin protein 2 (HP2), a partner of HP1 in Drosophila heterochromatin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99: 14332-14337 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Yan, C. M., Dobie, K. W., Le, H. D., Konev, A. Y., Karpen, G. H. (2002). Efficient Recovery of Centric Heterochromatin P-Element Insertions in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 161: 217-229 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Meehan, R. R., Pennings, S., Stancheva, I. (2001). Lashings of DNA methylation, forkfuls of chromatin remodeling. Genes Dev. 15: 3231-3236 [Full Text]  
  • Gilbert, N., Allan, J. (2001). Distinctive higher-order chromatin structure at mammalian centromeres. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98: 11949-11954 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»