Transcription and RNAi in heterochromatic gene silencing
Nature Structural & Molecular BiologyPublished 1 November 2007
Marc Bühler, Danesh Moazed
Citations231
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score6.19
SNIP2.06
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TL;DR
The roles of RNA and RNA turnover in mechanisms that mediate heterochromatin assembly and keepheterochromatic domains silent are discussed.
Abstract
Recent findings have challenged the longstanding belief that heterochromatin is an inert and transcriptionally inactive structure. Studies in organisms ranging from fission yeast to animals have found that noncoding RNAs transcribed from heterochromatic DNA repeats function in the assembly and function of heterochromatin. In this review, we discuss the roles of RNA and RNA turnover in mechanisms that mediate heterochromatin assembly and keep heterochromatic domains silent.
Keywords
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
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Current BiologyCentromere Silencing and Function in Fission Yeast Is Governed by the Amino Terminus of Histone H3
127 Citations2003Barbara G. Mellone, Leslie D. Ball +4 more
The importance of conserved residues within the histone H3 N terminus for the maintenance of centromeric heterochromatin in fission yeast is demonstrated and highlights the striking divergence between the hist one tail requirements for the fissions yeast and budding yeast silencing pathways.
GeneticsThe organization and expression of the light gene, a heterochromatic gene of Drosophila melanogaster.
127 Citations1990Robert H. Devlin, Brendan Bingham +1 more
Molecular mapping of lt mutations and its major transcripts has shown that the lt gene is at least 17 kb, and a 30-kb region is defined that can transiently rescue the pigmentation defect in the Malpighian tubules.
Nature Structural & Molecular BiologyTwo different Argonaute complexes are required for siRNA generation and heterochromatin assembly in fission yeast
126 Citations2007Shane M. Buker, Tetsushi Iida +5 more
It is shown that slicer activity is required for the siRNA-dependent association of Ago1 with chromatin and for the spreading of histone H3-K9 methylation.
CellNoncoding RNAs and Intranuclear Positioning in Monoallelic Gene Expression
114 Citations2007Pok Kwan Yang, Mitzi I. Kuroda
Two emerging themes are thought to be critical for monoallelic expression: noncoding, often antisense, transcription linked to differential chromatin marks on otherwise homologous alleles and physical segregation of alleles to separate domains within the nucleus.
CellCosuppression of Nonhomologous Transgenes in Drosophila Involves Mutually Related Endogenous Sequences
86 Citations1999Manika Pal‐Bhadra, Utpal Bhadra +1 more
It is demonstrated that two nonhomologous reciprocal fusion genes, white-Alcohol dehydrogenase (w-Adh) and Adh-w, exhibit cosuppression using the endogenous Adh sequence as an intermediary.
PLoS ONERibonuclease Activity of Dis3 Is Required for Mitotic Progression and Provides a Possible Link between Heterochromatin and Kinetochore Function
81 Citations2007Hiroaki Murakami, Derek B. Goto +5 more
It is shown that the progression of mitosis is arrested in dis3-54, and that segregation of the chromosomes is blocked by activation of the mitotic checkpoint control, dependent on the Mad2 checkpoint protein.
Molecular CellEpigenetic Silencing Mechanisms in Budding Yeast and Fruit Fly: Different Paths, Same Destinations
57 Citations2005Vincenzo Pirrotta, David S. Gross
Transcriptional silencing in budding yeast and fruit fly is mediated by fundamentally unrelated proteins that assemble very different chromatin structures, which have similar features, including an epigenetic mode of inheritance and a block to transcription based on interference with the assembly or function of the promoter complex.
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative BiologyStudies on the Mechanism of RNAi-dependent Heterochromatin Assembly
43 Citations2006Danesh Moazed, Marc Bühler +9 more
T tethering of the RITS complex to the transcript of the normally euchromatic ura4 (+) gene results in siRNA generation and RNAi- and heterochromatin-dependent silencing of the ura 4 gene by a mechanism that is termed co-transcriptional gene silencing (CTGS).
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative BiologyTranscriptional Landscape of the Human and Fly Genomes: Nonlinear and Multifunctional Modular Model of Transcriptomes
18 Citations2006Aarron Willingham, Sujit Dike +17 more
An interlaced model of the genome in which many regions serve multifunctional purposes and are highly modular in their utilization is illustrated, illustrating the underappreciated organizational complexity ofThe genome and one of the functional roles of transcription from unannotated portions of the genomes.
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