The influence of chromatin modifiers on transcription
Israel Steinfeld
TAU
Chromatin structure plays an important role in transcription
regulation. Many factors that influence chromatin structure have been
identified, but the transcriptional programs in which they
participate are still poorly understood. In various cases chromatin
modifiers (CMs) participate in transcriptional control together with
DNA bound transcription factors (TFs). Novel high-throughput
experimental methods allow the genome-wide identification of binding
sites for TFs, as well as the quantitation of gene expression under
various environmental and genetic conditions. We have developed a new
methodology that uses the vast amount of available data to dissect
the contribution of chromatin structure to transcription. We measure
and characterize the dependence of TFs on specific CMs to carry out
their transcriptional programs. We employ our methodology on S.
cerevisiae, using a compendium of 170 gene expression profiles of
strains defective for CMs, taken from 26 different studies. Our
method succeeds in identifying known intricate genetic interactions
between CMs and TFs and uncovers many novel genetic interactions,
giving a first genome-wide picture of the contribution of chromatin
structure to transcription in a eukaryote.