Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, CIRM Center of Excellence, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, B107 CLSL, 601 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2019 Apr;55:91-99. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2019.06.008. Epub 2019 Aug 5.
Higher eukaryotic cell nuclei are highly compartmentalized into bodies and structural assemblies of specialized functions. Nuclear speckles/IGCs are one of the most prominent nuclear bodies, yet their functional significance remains largely unknown. Recent advances in sequence-based mapping of nuclear genome organization now provide genome-wide analysis of chromosome organization relative to nuclear speckles. Here we review older microscopy-based studies on a small number of genes with the new genomic mapping data suggesting a significant fraction of the genome is almost deterministically positioned near nuclear speckles. Both microscopy and genomic-based approaches support the concept of the nuclear speckle periphery as a major active chromosomal compartment which may play an important role in fine-tuning gene regulation.
高等真核细胞的细胞核高度分隔成具有特殊功能的结构和结构体。核斑点/IGC 是最显著的核结构体之一，但它们的功能意义在很大程度上仍然未知。基于序列的核基因组组织图谱绘制的最新进展，现在可以对核斑点相对于染色体组织的基因组进行全基因组分析。在这里，我们回顾了少数几个基因的基于显微镜的旧研究，并结合新的基因组图谱数据，表明基因组的很大一部分几乎是确定性地定位于核斑点附近。显微镜和基于基因组的方法都支持核斑点外围作为主要的活性染色体区室的概念，这可能在精细调节基因调控中发挥重要作用。
