Dheur S, Saupe SJ, Genier S, Vazquez S, Javerzat JP

Increasing evidence implicates cohesin in the control of gene expression. Here we report the first analysis of cohesin-dependent gene regulation in fission yeast. Global expression profiling of the cohesin loader mutant mis4-367 identified a small number of upregulated and downregulated genes located within subtelomeric domains (SD). These 20-40 kb regions ...

Read More

between chromosome arm euchromatin and telomere-proximal heterochromatin are characterized by a combination of euchromatin (H3K4me) and heterochromatin (H3K9me) marks. We focused our analysis on the chromosome 1 right SD which contains several upregulated genes and is bordered on the telomere-distal side by a pair of downregulated genes. We find that the expression changes in the SD also occur in a mutant of the Rad21 cohesin core component. Remarkably, mutation of Rad21 results in depletion of Swi6 binding in the SD. In fact, the Rad21 mutation phenocopied Swi6 loss-of-function, both mutations leading to reduced cohesin binding, reduced H3K9me and to similar gene expression changes in the SD. In particular, expression of the gene pair bordering the SD was dependent both on cohesin and Swi6. Our data indicate that cohesin participates in the set up of a subtelomeric heterochromatin domain and controls expression of the genes residing in that domain.

Date: Dec. 28, 2010

View in: Pubmed Google Scholar

110372