Role of Chromatin Structure in Regulating Gene Expression: The hsp26 Gene of Drosophila melanogaster
- S.C.R. Elgin*,†,
- H. Granok*,†,
- Q. Lu*, and
- L.L. Wallrath*
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Our goal is to understand the contribution to gene regulation made by the basic structure of the 100 Å chromatin fiber and the contribution made by the packaging of the 100 Å chromatin fiber into a euchromatic or heterochromatic domain. The pattern of protein/DNA interactions along a given gene within intact nuclei can be mapped by using recombinant DNA probes to assess patterns of DNA modification or cleavage. The use of such techniques has shown that the bulk of the DNA in a eukaryotic nucleus is packaged in a nucleosomal array. However, sites at the 5′ ends of active or inducible genes are commonly observed to be hypersensitive to cleavage by DNase I (Wu 1980; for review, see Elgin 1988; Gross and Garrard 1988). Such DNase-I-hypersensitive sites (DH sites) have been shown both by biochemical analysis and by mapping studies to be nucleosome-free regions, discontinuities in the normal nucleosomal array...
