Novel relationships among DNA methylation, histone modifications and gene expression in Ascobolus

J. L. BARRA; A. M. HOLMES; A. GRÉGOIRE; J.-L. ROSSIGNOL ; G. FAUGERON

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2005 vol. 57 p. 180 - 180

b> By studying Ascobolus strains methylated in various portions of the nativemet2gene or of the hph transgene, we generalized our previous observation that methylation of the downstream portion of a gene promotes its stable silencing and triggers the production of truncated transcripts which rarely extend through the methylated region. In contrast, methylation of the promoter region does not promote efficient gene silencing. The chromatin state ofmet2methylatedstrains was investigated after partial micrococcal nuclease (MNase) digestion. We show that MNase sensitive sites present along the unmethylated regions are no longer observed along the methylated ones. These chromatin changes are no