Abstract
The Drosophila Polycomb and trithorax group proteins act through chromosomal elements such as Fab-7 to maintain repressed or active gene expression, respectively. A Fab-7 element is switched from a silenced to a mitotically heritable active state by an embryonic pulse of transcription. Here, histone H4 hyperacetylation was found to be associated with Fab-7 after activation, suggesting that H4 hyperacetylation may be a heritable epigenetic tag of the activated element. Activated Fab-7 enables transcription of a gene even after withdrawal of the primary transcription factor. This feature may allow epigenetic maintenance of active states of developmental genes after decay of their early embryonic regulators.
Keywords
EpigeneticsChromatinBiologyHistoneGeneticsTranscription factorTransactivationTranscription (linguistics)Regulation of gene expressionGeneEpigenetic regulation of neurogenesisCell biologyChromatin remodeling
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1999
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 286
- Issue
- 5441
- Pages
- 955-958
- Citations
- 240
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Giacomo Cavalli,
Renato Paro
(1999).
Epigenetic Inheritance of Active Chromatin After Removal of the Main Transactivator.
Science
, 286
(5441)
, 955-958.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5441.955
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.286.5441.955