Abstract
Certain parts of the genome of eukaryotes are packaged into "silent"' heterochromatin. The formation of specific regions of heterochromatin in fission yeast, Arabidopsis , and Drosophila involves the RNA interference machinery. Jia et al. now show that in fission yeast, the binding of either of a pair of transcription factors, Atf1 and Pcr1, in the mating-type region acts in a parallel pathway of heterochromatin nucleation. The analysis links Atf1 and Pcr1, which are members of the ATF/CREB family of proteins involved in cellular response to environmental stresses, to nucleation of constitutive heterochromatin. S. Jia, K. Noma, S. I. S. Grewal, RNAi-independent heterochromatin nucleation by the stress-activated ATF/CREB family proteins. Science 304 , 1971-1976 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]
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