Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF, 1625K) PPT slides of all figures Supplemental Material Index Related biobytes podcast Alert me when this article is cited Citation Map Services Email this article Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new content in the JCB Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Xu, M. Articles by Cook, P. R. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Xu, M. Articles by Cook, P. R. Related Collections Related In this Issue article Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RE, England, UK

Correspondence to P.R. Cook: peter.cook{at}path.ox.ac.uk

How transcription affects the way specific genes are arranged within the nucleus remains to be fully understood. We examine here whether transcription occurs in discrete sites (factories) containing the required machinery and whether these sites specialize in transcribing different genes. We cotransfected plasmids encoding a common origin of replication but different transcription units into cells, where they are assembled into minichromosomes that the cellular machinery replicates and transcribes. In cells containing thousands of minichromosomes, we found (using fluorescence in situ hybridization) active templates concentrated in only a few factories that transcribe particular units depending on the promoter type and the presence of an intron. Close proximity between similar transcription units, whether on two different minichromosomes or on host chromosomes and minichromosomes, is confirmed using chromosome conformation capture. We conclude that factories specialize in producing a particular type of transcript depending on promoter type and whether or not the gene contains an intron.

Abbreviations used in this paper: 3C, chromosome conformation capture; ChIP, chromatin immunoprecipitation; CMV, cytomegalovirus; DIG, digoxigenin; LCR, locus control region; qRT-PCR, quantitative RT-PCR; UBF, upstream binding factor.

© 2008 Xu and Cook This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication date (see http://www.jcb.org/misc/terms.shtml). After six months it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related In this Issue article

RNA polymerase doesn't make deliveries

Mitch Leslie
J. Cell Biol. 2008 181: 569. [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Leslie, M. (2008). RNA polymerase doesn't make deliveries. JCB 181: 569-569 [Full Text]  
• Lawrence, J. B., Clemson, C. M. (2008). Gene associations: true romance or chance meeting in a nuclear neighborhood?. JCB 182: 1035-1038 [Abstract] [Full Text]  

Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents