Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
Received 1 June 2004/ Returned for modification 27 July 2004/ Accepted 26 August 2004
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Biochemical experiments have not revealed a clear understanding for how nucleosomes affect transcriptional elongation by RNA polymerases. Bacterial SP6 and T7 RNA polymerases and yeast RNA polymerase III (Pol III) can mobilize histones and transcribe nucleosomal templates (11, 23, 42, 51-53). Specifically, histone octamers step around a transcribing polymerase without leaving the template, although the enzyme pauses with a pronounced periodicity due to restricted rotation in the intranucleosomal DNA loop. In contrast, although Pol II elongation rates on naked DNA templates are comparable to physiological elongation rates, elongation on chromatin templates is markedly inhibited and produces truncated transcripts (18, 19). In a purified transcription assay lacking chromatin-modifying factors, nucleosomes and histone H3-H4 tetramers nearly completely block Pol II elongation (9). However, under conditions of increased ionic strength, Pol II can elongate through nucleosomes, resulting in the dissociation of a single H2A-H2B dimer but retention of the remaining six subunits of the histone octamer (22).
It is presumed that Pol II elongation in vivo requires modification of chromatin structure. Histone acetylation weakens histone-DNA (16) and nucleosome-nucleosome (30) interactions, and it can increase transcription without affecting nucleosome mobility (56). Nucleosome-remodeling complexes (e.g., Swi/Snf and RSC) can slide or displace histone octamers along the DNA in an ATP-dependent fashion, and they can transfer histone octamers to acceptor DNA molecules (4, 32, 37). The relationship between these biochemical activities and transcriptional elongation through nucleosomal templates is unclear.
Several factors link transcriptional elongation and chromatin structure. The FACT complex facilitates Pol II elongation on chromatin templates by destabilizing nucleosomes and evicting histones H2A and H2B from DNA (5, 43, 44). Additionally, FACT can deposit core histones onto DNA in vitro (5). In yeast cells, FACT travels with elongating Pol II (33), and it plays a role in maintaining normal chromatin structure during transcriptional elongation and prevents inappropriate initiation from cryptic promoters within coding regions (21, 33). Spt6 behaves similarly to FACT in yeast cells, and loss of Spt6 activity causes decreased histone density in actively transcribed mRNA coding regions (21). It is unclear whether the physiological role of Spt6 is related to its biochemical activities of nucleosome assembly (7) and/or transcriptional elongation per se (14). Lastly, Chd1 associates with elongation factors and coding regions of actively transcribed genes (49), and it is part of chromatin-modifying and nucleosome assembly activities in vitro (46, 55).
Despite the above connections between Pol II elongation and chromatin structure, little is known about the fate of nucleosomes during transcriptional elongation in vivo. We report here that, in yeast cells, histone density throughout the entire coding region is inversely related to transcriptional activity. This observation has been made on a genome-wide basis in a report submitted contemporaneously with the present paper (29). Furthermore, we show that low histone density at actively transcribed genes is reversed in less than 1 min after inhibition of transcription. These observations suggest that histones are efficiently evicted throughout the entire coding region upon Pol II elongation, with new histones being rapidly deposited following Pol II clearance. We also show that, like Spt6, FACT is required for transcription-association deposition of histones. Our results suggest that Pol II transcription generates a highly dynamic equilibrium of histone eviction and histone deposition and that there is significant histone exchange throughout most of the yeast genome within a single cell cycle.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Chromatin immunoprecipitation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation was carried out with a modified version of a procedure described previously (3, 28). Cells (A600 = 0.7) were fixed in 1% formaldehyde for 20 min at room temperature, quenched for 5 min with glycine, and lysed with zirconia-silica beads (BioSpec Products) in a mini-bead beater (BioSpec Products). Chromatin was first pelleted by centrifugation and then solubilized by sonication (Branson Sonifier 350, three times, 100% duty, power 5, 30 s for each cycle). Cross-linked chromatin was immunoprecipitated with monoclonal antibodies to hemagglutinin (F7) and Myc (9e10; both from Santa Cruz Biotechnology) epitopes and Rbp1 (8WG16; Covance) and polyclonal antibodies to histone H3 (AbCam). Quantitative PCR analyses were performed in real time with an Applied Biosystems 7700 sequence detector. The PCR primers (coordinates defined relative to the transcription start site) correspond to the GAL7 promoter (230 to +57), GAL10 promoter (152 to +56), GAL10 5' coding region (+174 to +292), and GAL10 3' coding region (+1575 to +1788). Relative occupancy values were calculated by determining the apparent immunoprecipitation efficiency (amount of PCR product in the immunoprecipitated sample divided by the amount of PCR product in the input sample) and normalized to the level observed at an intergenic region of chromosome I, which was usually defined as 1.0. Congruency of data was also verified by normalizing the data to a gene expressed at low levels that appears to be unaffected by carbon source shifts (Rad53). For all data shown, each experiment was performed independently and replicated at least twice. Error bars shown reflect the standard deviations of the means.
| RESULTS |
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Rapid increase in histone density after passage of elongating Pol II. The fact that actively transcribed genes have low histone density provides an opportunity to investigate the kinetics of transcription-dependent deposition of histones in vivo. Specifically, we shifted galactose-grown cells into medium containing glucose and measured histone density at the GAL genes at various times after transcriptional initiation (Fig. 3). In accord with previous work (33, 40, 50), Pol II occupancy decreases 20- to 30-fold within 4 min after the shift to glucose medium. Concomitant with this decrease in transcription, occupancy of histones H2B, H3, and H4 increases rapidly at both promoter and coding regions. The behaviors of all three histones tested are kinetically similar, and histone densities increase to the level observed in glucose medium within 2 min after the shift.
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| DISCUSSION |
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Our results differ from in vitro analyses indicating that Pol II elongation evicts a single H2A-H2B dimer without affecting the remaining histone hexamer (5, 22). Further, they suggest that transcription-dependent eviction of histones is very efficient, perhaps occurring with every passage of elongating Pol II. Reduced histone density is clearly observed under conditions where Pol II association with the GAL genes is as low as 10% of maximum (1% galactose). Under conditions of full activation, TBP occupancy at GAL promoters is approximately half-maximal (28), which corresponds to initiation approximately every 10 s (17). Thus, reduced histone density is observed when Pol II passage through a given region occurs approximately once per minute, even though it takes less than 1 min to deposit new histones on DNA after cessation of transcription. Our data are most consistent with the idea that each passage of Pol II evicts histones, but we cannot exclude the possibility that eviction is slightly less efficient (for example, eviction every two or three passages of Pol II).
How might histones be evicted by the elongating Pol II machinery in vivo? Based on biochemical experiments, it seems unlikely that elongating Pol II per se can mediate eviction (9, 18, 19), although Pol II can dissociate a single H2A-H2B dimer under artificial conditions of high ionic strength (22). Similarly, the biochemical properties of the FACT complex (5, 43, 44) suggest that it may play a role in eviction of H2A-H2B dimers but not in eviction of H3 or H4. ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling complexes are likely to be important for histone eviction in vivo, because some of them can transfer histone octamers between different DNA templates in vitro (4, 32, 37). However, a failure to evict histones upon Pol II elongation is likely to be a lethal event, and RSC is the only nucleosome-remodeling complex essential for yeast cell growth. RSC is the most abundant nucleosome-remodeling complex in yeast (8), but it does not specifically associate with active Pol II genes (12, 39). We suspect that transcription-dependent eviction of histones in vivo might depend on the combined activities of multiple nucleosome-remodeling complexes. In any event, our results suggest that the various in vitro assays used to analyze Pol II elongation on nucleosomal template may be lacking factors that are crucial for the process in vivo.
The transcription-associated increase in histone density follows closely in the wake of elongating Pol II, occurring less than 1 min after Pol II clearance from coding regions. The low density of histones in the spt16-197 mutant suggests that FACT is important for such histone deposition, consistent with its ability to travel with elongating Pol II in vivo (33, 47) and to deposit all core histones on DNA in vitro (5). However, FACT is not sufficient for transcription-associated deposition of histones, because Spt6 also can mediate nucleosome assembly in vitro (7), travels with elongating Pol II in vivo (27), and is required for normal chromatin structure in actively transcribed regions (21). Furthermore, FACT and Spt6 are both required to suppress inappropriate Pol II initiation within coding regions (21, 33). Thus, in yeast cells both FACT and Spt6 are important for transcription-associated deposition of histones, and other factors may also be involved.
Our results suggest that Pol II transcription generates a highly dynamic equilibrium of histone eviction and deposition. Such histone exchange may occur at each passage (or perhaps every few passages) of Pol II through a given region, and any evicted histone appears to be rapidly replaced (less than 1 min). Although our experiments involve situations in which transcription is rapidly activated or repressed, it is highly likely that the same dynamic situation occurs at all genes. Specifically, the rate of Pol II initiation determines how often an elongating Pol II molecule passes through a given region and hence the relative amount of time that nucleosomes in this region are present or absent. Estimates of Pol II initiation rates in yeast cells based on absolute levels and half-lives of RNA indicate that initiation of most yeast genes occurs multiple times within a single cell cycle (15, 17). In this regard, we observe reduced histone density at the GAL10 gene under conditions where transcription occurs at a level that is only 3- to 10-fold higher than that for the vast majority of yeast genes. Consequently, our results suggest that there is significant histone exchange throughout most of the yeast genome within a single cell cycle.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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M.A.S. is supported by an NIH Pharmacological Sciences Training Grant. This work was supported by a grant to K.S. from the National Institutes of Health (GM30186).
| FOOTNOTES |
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