Subject Categories: Functional genomics | Chromatin & Transcription
Molecular Systems Biology 6 Article number: 365 doi:10.1038/msb.2010.20
Published online: 11 May 2010
Citation: Molecular Systems Biology 6:365
Divergence of nucleosome positioning between two closely related yeast species: genetic basis and functional consequences
Itay Tirosh1,a, Nadejda Sigal1,ab & Naama Barkai1
Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Correspondence to: Naama Barkai1 Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Tel.: +972 8 934 4429; Fax: +972 8 934 4108; Email: naama.barkai@weizmann.ac.il
Received 12 January 2010; Accepted 15 March 2010; Published online 11 May 2010
aThese authors contributed equally to this work
bPresent address: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, IsraelTopof page
Article highlights
Inter-species hybrids can be used to dissect the relative contribution ofcis and trans effects to the evolution of nucleosome positioning. Most (~70%) differences in nucleosome positioning between two closely related yeast species are due to cis effects.
Cis effects are primarily due to divergence of AT-rich nucleosome-disfavoring sequences, but are not associated with divergence of nucleosome-favoring sequences.
Differences in nucleosome positioning propagate to multiple adjacent nucleosomes, supporting the statistical positioning hypothesis.
Divergence of nucleosome positioning is excluded from regulatory elements and is not correlated with gene expression divergence, suggesting a neutral mode of evolution.
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