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PMID: 21262819 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

A chromatin insulator driving three-dimensional Polycomb response element (PRE) contacts and Polycomb association with the chromatin fiber.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 108 ·No. 6 ·2011-02-08 ·Pages 2294-9

Comet I, Schuettengruber B, Sexton T, Cavalli G

Abstract

Regulation of gene expression involves long-distance communication between regulatory elements and target promoters, but how this is achieved remains unknown. Insulator elements have been proposed to modulate the communication between regulatory elements and promoters due to their ability to insulate genes from regulatory elements or to take part in long-distance interactions. Using a high-resolution chromatin conformation capture (H3C) method, we show that the Drosophila gypsy insulator behaves as a conformational chromatin border that is able to prohibit contacts between a Polycomb response element (PRE) and a distal promoter. On the other hand, two spaced gypsy elements form a chromatin loop that is able to bring an upstream PRE in contact with a downstream gene to mediate its repression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) profiles of the Polycomb protein and its associated H3K27me3 histone mark reflect this insulator-dependent chromatin conformation, suggesting that Polycomb action at a distance can be organized by local chromatin topology.

MeSH Terms
Animals Chromatin/genetics,metabolism Chromatin Assembly and Disassembly/physiology Drosophila Proteins/genetics,metabolism Drosophila melanogaster Histones/genetics,metabolism Insulator Elements/physiology Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 Response Elements/physiology
Chemicals
Chromatin Drosophila Proteins Histones Pc protein, Drosophila Polycomb Repressive Complex 1
Authors & Affiliations
4 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Comet Itys
Institut de Génétique Humaine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Propre de Recherche 1142, 34396 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
Schuettengruber Bernd
Sexton Tom
Cavalli Giacomo
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1002059108
Published
2011-02-08
Epub
2011-00-24
Pages
2294-9
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC3038747
Subset
IM
Grants
European Research Council · 232947 · International
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1002059108 PMC Full Text View journal details
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