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Activator-specific recruitment of Mediator in vivo

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 13, pages 117–120 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The Mediator complex associates with eukaryotic RNA polymerase (Pol) II and is recruited to transcriptional enhancers by activator proteins. It is believed that Mediator is a general component of the Pol II machinery that is crucial to connect enhancer-bound activators to basic transcription factors. However, we show that Mediator does not detectably associate with many highly active Pol II promoters in yeast cells. Furthermore, in response to stress conditions, Mediator association is not directly related to Pol II association and in some cases is not detectable at highly activated promoters. Thus, Mediator is recruited to enhancers in an activator-specific manner, and it does not seem to be a stoichiometric component of the basic Pol II machinery in vivo. Mediator is recruited by many activators involved in stress responses, but not by the major activators that function under optimal conditions.

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Figure 1: Mediator associates with transcriptionally active GAL1, but not CDC19 and RPS11B.
Figure 2: Mediator association in response to heat shock.
Figure 3: Mediator association in response to copper and osmotic stress.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Hall for generating many of the tagged yeast strains, and Z. Moqtaderi and J. Wade for help with the microarray analysis. This work was supported by grants to K.S. from the US National Institutes of Health (GM30186).

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  1. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Xiaochun Fan, Danny M Chou & Kevin Struhl

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  1. Xiaochun Fan
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  2. Danny M Chou
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  3. Kevin Struhl
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Correspondence to Kevin Struhl.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

Mediator does not associate with transcriptionally active ribosomal protein genes and glycolytic genes. (PDF 1321 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

Mediator preferentially associates with heat-shock response genes upon heat shock. (PDF 1226 kb)

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Fan, X., Chou, D. & Struhl, K. Activator-specific recruitment of Mediator in vivo. Nat Struct Mol Biol 13, 117–120 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1049

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