Genome‐wide organization of chromatin and the transcription machinery (225.1)

Abstract

With the advent of high throughput and high‐resolution genome‐wide protein‐DNA detection assays, the inter‐relationships between chromatin and the transcription machinery are now becoming clearer. We recently developed ChIP‐exo as a genome‐wide ultra‐high resolution assay to identify where specific proteins bind across any genome at near single base resolution. ChIP‐exo reduces false positives and false negatives, thereby providing a largely unambiguous view. From this, in the context of crystallographic data, structural and mechanistic insights into genome‐wide binding events can be attained. This will be demonstrated for sequence‐specific DNA binding proteins, chromatin regulators, and the general transcription machinery. Remarkably, several unifying themes emerge such as the presence of the same core promoter elements and mechanisms of transcription initiation occurring at most genes, from yeast to humans, from TATA‐containing to TATA‐less, and from coding to noncoding genes.