Infrequently transcribed long genes depend on the Set2/Rpd3S pathway for accurate transcription (original) (raw)

  1. Bing Li1,
  2. Madelaine Gogol1,
  3. Mike Carey1,2,
  4. Samantha G. Pattenden1,
  5. Chris Seidel1, and
  6. Jerry L. Workman1,3
  7. 1 Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, USA;
  8. 2 Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, Univeristy of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA

Abstract

The presence of Set2-mediated methylation of H3K36 (K36me) correlates with transcription frequency throughout the yeast genome. K36me targets the Rpd3S complex to deacetylate transcribed regions and suppress cryptic transcription initiation at certain genes. Here, using a genome-wide approach, we report that the Set2–Rpd3S pathway is generally required for controlling acetylation at coding regions. When using acetylation as a functional readout for this pathway, we discovered that longer genes and, surprisingly, genes transcribed at lower frequency exhibit a stronger dependency. Moreover, a systematic screen using high-resolution tiling microarrays allowed us to identify a group of genes that rely on Set2–Rpd3S to suppress spurious transcripts. Interestingly, most of these genes are within the group that depend on the same pathway to maintain a hypoacetylated state at coding regions. These data highlight the importance of using the functional readout of histone codes to define the roles of specific pathways.

Footnotes