Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 12, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21589-3
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Funding
- Max Planck Society, a Human Frontier Science Program career development award [CDA-00060/2012]
- ELBE Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Center for Systems Biology Dresden
- Helmholtz Program Biointerfaces in Technology and Medicine (BIFTM)
- Volkswagen foundation Life? initiative
- JSPS KAKENHI [JP15K07157, JP17KK0143, JP17H01417, JP18H05527]
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This study observed the dynamics of euchromatin organization in pluripotent zebrafish cells during transcription initiation, revealing that accumulation of RNA induces the formation of transcriptionally active regions that tend to separate from transcriptionally inactive euchromatin, forming smaller scale microphases.
In eukaryotes, DNA is packed inside the cell nucleus in the form of chromatin, which consists of DNA, proteins such as histones, and RNA. Euchromatin, which is permissive for transcription, is spatially organized into transcriptionally inactive domains interspersed with pockets of transcriptional activity. While transcription and RNA have been implicated in euchromatin organization, it remains unclear how their interplay forms and maintains transcription pockets. Here we combine theory and experiment to analyze the dynamics of euchromatin organization as pluripotent zebrafish cells exit mitosis and begin transcription. We show that accumulation of RNA induces formation of transcription pockets which displace transcriptionally inactive chromatin. We propose that the accumulating RNA recruits RNA-binding proteins that together tend to separate from transcriptionally inactive euchromatin. Full phase separation is prevented because RNA remains tethered to transcribed euchromatin through RNA polymerases. Instead, smaller scale microphases emerge that do not grow further and form the typical pattern of euchromatin organization. How euchromatin organisation and transcription are related is unclear. Here, the authors observe the dynamics of euchromatin organization showing that accumulating RNA recruits RNA-binding proteins that together with transcribed euchromatin separate from non-transcribed euchromatin, forming microphases.
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