Article: Chromosome Contact and Gene Regulation
- From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 00:38:47 -0400 (EDT)
Chromosome Contact and Gene Regulation
The following points are made by Dimitris Kioussis (Nature 2005 435:579):
1) The cell has evolved many strategies to orchestrate gene activation or
repression. New work[1] reveals a novel mechanism of gene regulation,
throwing light on how cells organize their genome to respond efficiently to
stimuli. The work shows that genes on different chromosomes that are
destined to be expressed within a common cell lineage are brought together
in the nucleus. Such inter-chromosomal communication has been suspected for
some time, but this is the first evidence that it actually takes place.
2) Our understanding of gene regulation has moved from an initial notion of
a one-dimensional array of regulatory elements next to each other on the
same thread of DNA as the gene to an appreciation that genes are associated
with groups of proteins, forming multimolecular complexes that are arranged
in structures generically known as chromatin[2]. The subsequent discovery
that distant, contiguous sequences can have a profound effect on gene
expression introduced a second dimension onto the scene, with "looping" and
"scanning" (probably mediated by the attached proteins) invoked to explain
these long-range interactions[3].
Full Text at ScienceWeek
http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw050909-3.htm
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
.
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