RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Genome-wide rules of nucleosome phasing
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 093666
DO 10.1101/093666
A1 Sandro Baldi
A1 Dhawal S. Jain
A1 Lisa Harpprecht
A1 Angelika Zabel
A1 Marion Scheibe
A1 Falk Butter
A1 Tobias Straub
A1 Peter B. Becker
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/13/093666.abstract
AB Regular successions of positioned nucleosomes – phased nucleosome arrays (PNAs) – are predominantly known from transcriptional start sites (TSS). It is unclear whether PNAs occur elsewhere in the genome. To generate a comprehensive inventory of PNAs for Drosophila, we applied spectral analysis to nucleosome maps and identified thousands of PNAs throughout the genome. About half of them are not near TSS and strongly enriched for a novel sequence motif. Through genome-wide reconstitution of physiological chromatin in Drosophila embryo extracts we uncovered the molecular basis of PNA formation. We identified Phaser, an unstudied zinc finger protein that positions nucleosomes flanking the new motif. It also revealed how the global activity of the chromatin remodeler CHRAC/ACF, together with local barrier elements, generates islands of regular phasing throughout the genome. Our work demonstrates the potential of chromatin assembly by embryo extracts as a powerful tool to reconstitute chromatin features on a global scale in vitro.