Evidence for gene-specific rather than transcription rate-dependent histone H3 exchange in yeast coding regions

Irit Gat-Viks*, Martin Vingron

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

In eukaryotic organisms, histones are dynamically exchanged independently of DNA replication. Recent reports show that different coding regions differ in their amount of replication-independent histone H3 exchange. The current paradigm is that this histone exchange variability among coding regions is a consequence of transcription rate. Here we put forward the idea that this variability might be also modulated in a gene-specific manner independently of transcription rate. To that end, we study transcription rate-independent replication-independent coding region histone H3 exchange. We term such events relative exchange. Our genome-wide analysis shows conclusively that in yeast, relative exchange is a novel consistent feature of coding regions. Outside of replication, each coding region has a characteristic pattern of histone H3 exchange that is either higher or lower than what was expected by its RNAPII transcription rate alone. Histone H3 exchange in coding regions might be a way to add or remove certain histone modifications that are important for transcription elongation. Therefore, our results that gene-specific coding region histone H3 exchange is decoupled from transcription rate might hint at a new epigenetic mechanism of transcription regulation.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1000282
JournalPLoS Computational Biology
Volume5
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2009
Externally publishedYes

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