An activation-independent role of transcription factors in insulator function.
Chromatin insulators are defined as transcriptionally neutral elements that prevent negative or positive influence from extending across chromatin to a promoter. Here we show that yeast subtelomeric anti-silencing regions behave as boundaries to telomere-driven silencing and also allow discontinuous propagation of silent chromatin. These two facets of insulator activity, boundary and silencing discontinuity, can be recapitulated by tethering various transcription activation domains to tandem sites on DNA. Importantly, we show that these insulator activities do not involve direct transcriptional activation of the reporter promoter. These findings predict that certain promoters behave as insulators and partition genomes in functionally independent domains.
Fourel
G
G
Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France. Genevieve.Fourel@ens-lyon.fr
Boscheron
C
C
Revardel
E
E
Lebrun
E
E
Hu
Y F
YF
Simmen
K C
KC
Müller
K
K
Li
R
R
Mermod
N
N
Gilson
E
E
D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015825:Chromosomes, Fungal / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015966:Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; D020868:Gene Silencing; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015533:Transcriptional Activation
D002843:Chromatin; D004271:DNA, Fungal; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D005656:Fungal Proteins; C065681:REB1 protein, S cerevisiae; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; C079376:TBF1 protein, S cerevisiae; D014157:Transcription Factors