Chromatin organization marks exon-intron structure
Chromatin organization marks exon-intron structure
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DOI：
10.1038/nsmb.1659
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发表时间：
2009-09-01
影响因子：
16.8
通讯作者：
Ast, Gil
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Schwartz, Schraga;Meshorer, Eran;Ast, Gil
越来越多的证据表明转录和剪接是偶联的，并且染色质组织调控转录这一观点已被接受。关于染色质结构和外显子 - 内含子结构之间的相互作用知之甚少。通过对来自人类、果蝇和线虫的全基因组核小体定位数据集的分析，我们发现外显子相对于内含子显示出核小体占据水平的升高，我们将这一发现与外显子和内含子之间不同的GC含量以及不利于核小体的元件联系起来。对人类和小鼠全基因组染色质免疫沉淀数据的分析揭示了在外显子中富集的四种特定的组蛋白翻译后修饰。我们的研究结果表明，先前描述的外显子中H3K36me3修饰的富集反映了一种更基本的现象，即沿着外显子的核小体占据增加。我们的结果表明存在一种由RNA聚合酶II介导的染色质结构和外显子 - 内含子结构之间的相互作用，这意味着外显子的选择可能受到染色质结构的调节。
An increasing body of evidence indicates that transcription and splicing are coupled, and it is accepted that chromatin organization regulates transcription. Little is known about the cross-talk between chromatin structure and exon-intron architecture. By analysis of genome-wide nucleosome-positioning data sets from humans, flies and worms, we found that exons show increased nucleosome-occupancy levels with respect to introns, a finding that we link to differential GC content and nucleosome-disfavoring elements between exons and introns. Analysis of genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation data in humans and mice revealed four specific post-translational histone modifications enriched in exons. Our findings indicate that previously described enrichment of H3K36me3 modifications in exons reflects a more fundamental phenomenon, namely increased nucleosome occupancy along exons. Our results suggest an RNA polymerase II-mediated cross-talk between chromatin structure and exon-intron architecture, implying that exon selection may be modulated by chromatin structure.