A coordintate global control over cellular transcription
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ABSTRACT: Although much is known about the regulation of eukaryotic transcription, the global controls which determine rates of total transcription within a cell are not well understood. We have investigated the effects that the DNA to protein ratio has on both total cellular transcription and the transcription of individual mRNA genes in the unicellular eukaryote fission yeast. Mutants altered in cell size and those blocked in cell cycle progression were used to vary the DNA to protein ratio over a fivefold range around the wild type value. We find that cells of sizes within twofold of wild type value regulate global transcription to maintain similar transcription rates per protein regardless of the cellular DNA content. These changes in total transcription were correlated with coordinated changes in gene occupancy by RNA polymerase II. In large cell cycle arrested mutants, when the DNA to protein ratio falls to a low level, total transcription rates plateau as DNA becomes limiting for transcription1. Unexpectedly, expression levels of individual genes remained tightly coordinated with each other over the entire range of cell sizes. We propose that there is a coordinated, global cellular control which determines the rate of transcription of most genes in the genome and that this control plays a role in regulating the overall growth rate of the cell. Normalized data generated using protocol P-TABM-1335 is available in file ZHURINSKY_NORMALISED_DATA.txt in the additional data archive.
INSTRUMENT(S): Axon GenePix 4000B scanning hardware
ORGANISM(S): Schizosaccharomyces pombe
SUBMITTER: Jacob Zhurinsky
PROVIDER: E-TABM-1075 | biostudies-arrayexpress |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress
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