Nucleosome displacement in transcription (original) (raw)

1. Jerry L. Workman1
2. Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, USA

Abstract

Recent reports reinforce the notion that nucleosomes are highly dynamic in response to the process of transcription. Nucleosomes are displaced at promoters during gene activation in a process that involves histone modification, ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling complexes, histone chaperones and perhaps histone variants. During transcription elongation nucleosomes are acetylated and transferred behind RNA polymerase II where they are required to suppress spurious transcription initiation within the body of the gene. It is becoming increasingly clear that the eukaryotic transcriptional machinery is adapted to exploit the presence of nucleosomes in very sophisticated ways.

• Histone
• nucleosome
• transcription
• transcription elongation
• transcription initiation

Footnotes

• ↵1 Correspondence.
  ↵1 E-MAIL jlw@stowers-institute.org; FAX (816) 926-4692

• Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1435706

• Copyright © 2006, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

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