Abstract
The role of genomic sequence in directing the packaging of eukaryotic genomes into chromatin has been the subject of considerable recent debate. A new paper from Tillo and Hughes shows that the intrinsic thermodynamic preference of a given sequence in the yeast genome for the histone octamer can largely be captured with a simple model, and in fact is mostly explained by %GC. Thus, the rules for predicting nucleosome occupancy from genomic sequence are much less complicated than has been claimed.See research article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/10/442
Highlights
Packaging of eukaryotic DNA into nucleosomes has profound effects on DNA-templated processes
Some properties of strongly pro- and antinucleosomal DNA sequences had already been elaborated in the pregenomic era, but given the limited DNA sequencing capacity available, the extent to which genomic sequence programmed chromatin structure in vivo was unknown
It has been known for decades that there is at least some variation between DNA sequences in their affinity for the histone octamer [6]
Summary
Packaging of eukaryotic DNA into nucleosomes has profound effects on DNA-templated processes. Two early studies agreed that such sequences were enriched at the +1 nucleosome position, but these studies did not capture the dominant feature of yeast promoters nucleosome depletion at the so-called nucleosome-free region.
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