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.