Nucleation and spreading of a heterochromatic domain in fission yeast

Michaela J. Obersriebnig, Emil M. H. Pallesen, Kim Sneppen, Ala Trusina and Geneviève Thon ()
Additional contact information
Michaela J. Obersriebnig: University of Copenhagen
Emil M. H. Pallesen: University of Copenhagen
Kim Sneppen: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
Ala Trusina: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
Geneviève Thon: University of Copenhagen

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Outstanding questions in the chromatin field bear on how large heterochromatin domains are formed in space and time. Positive feedback, where histone-modifying enzymes are attracted to chromosomal regions displaying the modification they catalyse, is believed to drive the formation of these domains; however, few quantitative studies are available to assess this hypothesis. Here we quantified the de novo establishment of a naturally occurring ∼20-kb heterochromatin domain in fission yeast through single-cell analyses, measuring the kinetics of heterochromatin nucleation in a region targeted by RNAi and its subsequent expansion. We found that nucleation of heterochromatin is stochastic and can take from one to ten cell generations. Further silencing of the full region takes another one to ten generations. Quantitative modelling of the observed kinetics emphasizes the importance of local feedback, where a nucleosome-bound enzyme modifies adjacent nucleosomes, combined with a feedback where recruited enzymes can act at a distance.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11518 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms11518

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11518

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().