Abstract
The generation of a local chromatin topology conducive to transcription is a key step in gene regulation1. The yeast SWI/SNF complex is the founding member of a family of ATP-dependent remodelling activities capable of altering chromatin structure both in vitro and in vivo2. Despite its importance, the pathway by which the SWI/SNF complex disrupts chromatin structure is unknown. Here we use a model system to demonstrate that the yeast SWI/SNF complex can reposition nucleosomes in an ATP-dependent reaction that favours attachment of the histone octamer to an acceptor site on the same molecule of DNA (in cis). We show that SWI/SNF-mediated displacement of the histone octamer is effectively blocked by a barrier introduced into the DNA, suggesting that this redistribution involves sliding or tracking of nucleosomes along DNA, and that it is achieved by a catalytic mechanism. We conclude that SWI/SNF catalyses the redistribution of nucleosomes along DNA in cis, which may represent a general mechanism by which ATP-dependent chromatin remodelling occurs.
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Acknowledgements
We thank C. Peterson for pCL3; and D. Lilley, J. Allan and members of the Division of Gene Regulation, University of Dundee, for valuable discussion and support. This work was supported primarily by a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award to T.O.-H.; A.F. is an EMBO long-term fellow; I.W. is a BBSRC postgraduate student. A generous donation from the Rappaport Intermaritime Foundation was used to purchase imaging equipment.
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Whitehouse, I., Flaus, A., Cairns, B. et al. Nucleosome mobilization catalysed by the yeast SWI/SNF complex. Nature 400, 784–787 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/23506
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/23506
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