Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA.
Epigenetics. 2012 Jun 1;7(6):528-34. doi: 10.4161/epi.20057.
In eukaryotes, epigenetic information can be encoded in parental cells through modification of histones and subsequently passed on to daughter cells in a process known as transgenerational epigenetic regulation. Simian Virus 40 (SV40) is a well-characterized virus whose small circular DNA genome is organized into chromatin and, as a consequence, undergoes many of the same biological processes observed in cellular chromatin. In order to determine whether SV40 is capable of transgenerational epigenetic regulation, we have analyzed SV40 chromatin from minichromosomes and virions for the presence of modified histones using various ChIP techniques and correlated these modifications with specific biological effects on the SV40 life cycle. Our results demonstrate that, like its cellular counterpart, SV40 chromatin is capable of passing biologically relevant transgenerational epigenetic information between infections.
在真核生物中，表观遗传信息可以通过组蛋白的修饰在亲代细胞中编码，随后在一个被称为跨代表观遗传调控的过程中传递给子细胞。猴病毒 40（SV40）是一种特征明确的病毒，其小环状 DNA 基因组组织成染色质，因此经历了许多在细胞染色质中观察到的相同的生物学过程。为了确定 SV40 是否能够进行跨代表观遗传调控，我们使用各种 ChIP 技术分析了来自微小染色体和病毒粒子的 SV40 染色质中修饰组蛋白的存在情况，并将这些修饰与 SV40 生命周期中的特定生物学效应相关联。我们的结果表明，与细胞中的 SV40 染色质一样，SV40 染色质能够在感染之间传递具有生物学意义的跨代表观遗传信息。
