The elongation rate of RNA polymerase determines the fate of transcribed nucleosomes

Upon transcription, histones can either detach from DNA or transfer behind the polymerase through a process believed to involve template looping. The details governing nucleosomal fate during transcription are not well understood. Our atomic force microscopy images of yeast RNA polymerase II–nucleosome complexes confirm the presence of looped transcriptional intermediates and provide mechanistic insight into the histone-transfer process through the distribution of transcribed nucleosome positions. Notably, we find that a fraction of the transcribed nucleosomes are remodeled to hexasomes, and this fraction depends on the transcription elongation rate. A simple model involving the kinetic competition between transcription elongation, histone transfer and histone-histone dissociation quantitatively explains our observations and unifies them with results obtained from other polymerases. Factors affecting the relative magnitude of these processes provide the physical basis for nucleosomal fate during transcription and, therefore, for the regulation of gene expression.

• Publication year

  2011

• Venue

  Nature Structural &Molecular Biology

• Publication date

  2011-09-21

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/nsmb.2164PMID 22081017PMCID 3279329
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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