DNase I hypersensitivity is independent of endogenous topoisomerase II activity during chicken erythrocyte differentiation.

Endogenous topoisomerase II cleavage sites were mapped in the chicken beta A-globin gene of 12- to 14-day embryonic erythrocytes. A major topoisomerase II catalytic site was mapped to the 5' end of the globin gene which contained a nucleosome-free and DNase I-hypersensitive site and additional but minor sites were mapped to the second intron and 3' of the gene to a tissue-specific enhancer. Cleavage sites, mapped in situ by indirect end labeling, were aligned to single-base-pair resolution by comparison to a consensus sequence derived for vertebrate topoisomerase II catalytic sites. In contrast to embryonic erythrocytes, endogenous topoisomerase II cleavages were not detected in erythrocytes from peripheral blood of adult chickens; therefore, as the transcriptional activity of the beta A-globin gene declines during terminal differentiation of erythrocytes, the activity of topoisomerase II in situ declines as well, despite the fact that DNase I hypersensitivity persists. The results showed that DNase I-hypersensitive chromatin can be maintained in the absence of topoisomerase II activity and suggested that topoisomerase II acts at hypersensitive sites because of an inherent attraction to some preexisting combination of DNA sequence or chromatin structure associated with DNase I-hypersensitive regions.