Structural Transition of the Nucleosome during Transcription Elongation

Tomoya Kujirai; Haruhiko Ehara; Shun-Ichi Sekine; Hitoshi Kurumizaka

doi:10.3390/cells12101388

Structural Transition of the Nucleosome during Transcription Elongation

Cells. 2023 May 14;12(10):1388. doi: 10.3390/cells12101388.

Authors

Tomoya Kujirai^{1

2}, Haruhiko Ehara², Shun-Ichi Sekine², Hitoshi Kurumizaka^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Chromatin Structure and Function, Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan.
² Laboratory for Transcription Structural Biology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230-0045, Japan.

Abstract

In eukaryotes, genomic DNA is tightly wrapped in chromatin. The nucleosome is a basic unit of chromatin, but acts as a barrier to transcription. To overcome this impediment, the RNA polymerase II elongation complex disassembles the nucleosome during transcription elongation. After the RNA polymerase II passage, the nucleosome is rebuilt by transcription-coupled nucleosome reassembly. Nucleosome disassembly-reassembly processes play a central role in preserving epigenetic information, thus ensuring transcriptional fidelity. The histone chaperone FACT performs key functions in nucleosome disassembly, maintenance, and reassembly during transcription in chromatin. Recent structural studies of transcribing RNA polymerase II complexed with nucleosomes have provided structural insights into transcription elongation on chromatin. Here, we review the structural transitions of the nucleosome during transcription.

Keywords: FACT; RNA polymerase II; chromatin; histone chaperone; nucleosome; template DNA looping; transcription.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Chromatin / genetics
DNA
Nucleosomes*
RNA Polymerase II* / metabolism
Transcription, Genetic

Substances

Nucleosomes
RNA Polymerase II
Chromatin
DNA

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP20H03201 (H.E., T.K.), JP20H05690 (T.K., S.-i.S.), JP23H05475 (H.K.), JP20H00449 (H.K.), JP22K15033 (T.K.), and JP18H05534 (H.K.), a Japan Science and Technology Agency ERATO grant, JPMJER1901 (H.K.), and the Research Support Project for Life Science and Drug Discovery (Basis for Supporting Innovative Drug Discovery and Life Science Research (BINDS)) from AMED, under Grant Number JP22ama121009 (H.K.).