Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 103, Issue 40, Pages 14877-14882Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606958103
Keywords
CENP-A; centromere; Cse4p; kinetochore
Categories
Funding
- NCI NIH HHS [R01 CA011034, CA 11034] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans, the 3-kb centromeric DNA regions (CEN) of each of the eight chromosomes have different and unique DNA sequences. The centromeric histone CaCse4p (CENP-A homolog) occurs only within these 3-kb CEN regions to form specialized centromeric chromatin. Centromere activity was maintained on small chromosome fragments derived in vivo by homologous recombination of a native chromosome with linear DNA fragments containing a telomere and a selectable marker. An in vivo derived 85-kb truncated chromosome containing the 3-kb CEN7 locus on 69 kb of chromosome 7 DNA was stably and autonomously maintained in mitosis, indicating that preexisting active CEN chromatin remains functional through many generations. This same 85-kb chromosome fragment, isolated as naked DNA (devoid of chromatin proteins) from C. albicans and reintroduced back into C albicans cells by standard DNA transformation techniques, was unable to reform functional CEN chromatin and was mitotically unstable. Comparison of active and inactive CEN chromatin digested with micrococcal nuclease revealed that periodic nucleosome arrays are disrupted at active centromeres. Chromatin immunoprecipitation with antibodies against CaCse4p confirmed that CEN7 introduced into C. albicans cells as naked DNA did not recruit CaCse4p or induce its spread to a duplicate region only 7 kb away from active CEN7 chromatin. These results indicate that CaCse4p recruitment and centromere activation are epigenetically specified and maintained in C. albicans.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available