Co-Factors and Chromatin Remodelling Flashcards
Why do some TFs require co-activators to interact with the basal transcriptional apparatus directly?
they only have DNA binding and no (or weak) activation domains
What are the main roles of co-factors?
- part of core transcription machinery
- bridging TFs and PIC
- help recruit GTFs and RNAPII
- chemical modification of nucleosomes
- chromatin remodelling
What is the mediator complex?
a protein complex tightly associated with RNAPII CTD in yeast that can act as a scaffold for protein-protein interaction
What are the 5 classes of co-factors?
- I - core PIC
- II - bridging
- III - mediator
- IV - histone modification
- V - chromatin remodelling
How are nucleosomes dynamic?
they can ‘wrap-unwrap-rewrap’ in milliseconds, allowing DNA to be accessible most of the time for binding TFs
What is nucleosome positioning important for?
influencing gene transcription
What are the 4 main mechanisms by which transcriptional activators direct local alterations in chromatin structure?
- nucleosome remodelling
- nucleosome removal
- histone replacement
- histone modifications
Give examples of covalent modifications of histones
acetylation, phosphorylation and methylation
What does each nucleosome have?
8 unstructured, flexible histone tails
What is the histone code hypothesis?
covalent modifications of histone tails facilitate the binding of specific proteins to chromatin to perform distinct functions
Which histone modificaiton is most used to identify active enhancers?
H3K27Ac
How are conventional histone genes arranged?
clustered in the genome in tandem repeats with all of five histone genes in each repeat
How are histone variants encoded?
by different histone genes expressed at lower levels than regular histones
What can insertion of different histone variants into nucleosomes do?
signal different functions that can be recognised by chromatin remodelling complexes
What does acetylation do?
remove the positive charge on histone tails, which decreases the interaction between histones and the negatively charged groups of the DNA, making the condensed chromatin open for transcription