Searching across hundreds of databases

Our searching services are busy right now. Your search will reload in five seconds.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

Yeast silent mating type loci form heterochromatic clusters through silencer protein-dependent long-range interactions.

PLoS genetics | 2009

The organization of eukaryotic genomes is characterized by the presence of distinct euchromatic and heterochromatic sub-nuclear compartments. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae heterochromatic loci, including telomeres and silent mating type loci, form clusters at the nuclear periphery. We have employed live cell 3-D imaging and chromosome conformation capture (3C) to determine the contribution of nuclear positioning and heterochromatic factors in mediating associations of the silent mating type loci. We identify specific long-range interactions between HML and HMR that are dependent upon silencing proteins Sir2p, Sir3p, and Sir4p as well as Sir1p and Esc2p, two proteins involved in establishment of silencing. Although clustering of these loci frequently occurs near the nuclear periphery, colocalization can occur equally at more internal positions and is not affected in strains deleted for membrane anchoring proteins yKu70p and Esc1p. In addition, appropriate nucleosome assembly plays a role, as deletion of ASF1 or combined disruption of the CAF-1 and HIR complexes abolishes the HML-HMR interaction. Further, silencer proteins are required for clustering, but complete loss of clustering in asf1 and esc2 mutants had only minor effects on silencing. Our results indicate that formation of heterochromatic clusters depends on correctly assembled heterochromatin at the silent loci and, in addition, identify an Asf1p-, Esc2p-, and Sir1p-dependent step in heterochromatin formation that is not essential for gene silencing but is required for long-range interactions.

Pubmed ID: 19424429 RIS Download

Research resources used in this publication

None found

Additional research tools detected in this publication

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

  • Agency: NHGRI NIH HHS, United States
    Id: R01 HG003143
  • Agency: NHGRI NIH HHS, United States
    Id: R01 HG003143-06
  • Agency: NHGRI NIH HHS, United States
    Id: HG003143

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


R Project for Statistical Computing (tool)

RRID:SCR_001905

Software environment and programming language for statistical computing and graphics. R is integrated suite of software facilities for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display. Can be extended via packages. Some packages are supplied with the R distribution and more are available through CRAN family.It compiles and runs on wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS.

View all literature mentions