Marking of active genes on mitotic chromosomes

Emil F. Michelotti, Suzanne Sanford and David Levens
Additional contact information
Emil F. Michelotti: Gene Regulation Section, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
Suzanne Sanford: Gene Regulation Section, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
David Levens: Gene Regulation Section, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

Nature, 1997, vol. 388, issue 6645, 895-899

Abstract: Abstract During development and differentiation, cellular phenotypes are stably propagated through numerous cell divisions1. This epigenetic ‘cell memory’ helps to maintain stable patterns of gene expression2. DNA methylation3 and the propagation of specific chromatin structures may both contribute to cell memory4. There are two impediments during the cell cycle that can hinder the inheritance of specific chromatin configurations: first, the pertinent structures must endure the passage of DNA-replication forks in S phase5; second, the chromatin state must survive mitosis, when chromatin condenses, transcription is turned off, and almost all double-stranded DNA-binding proteins are displaced6,7. After mitosis, the previous pattern of expressed and silent genes must be restored. This restoration might be governed by mass action, determined by the binding affinities and concentrations of individual components. Alternatively, a subset of factors might remain bound to mitotic chromosomes, providing a molecular bookmark to direct proper chromatin reassembly. Here we analyse DNA at transcription start sites during mitosis invivo and find that it is conformationally distorted in genes scheduled forreactivation but is undistorted in repressed genes. Theseprotein-dependent conformational perturbations could help to re-establish transcription after mitosis by ‘marking’ genes for re-expression.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/42282 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6645:d:10.1038_42282

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

DOI: 10.1038/42282

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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