Department of Biology, Indiana University, 915 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
Toxalim (Research Centre in Food Toxicology), Université de Toulouse, INRA, ENVT, INP-Purpan, UPS, 31027, Toulouse, France.
Nat Commun. 2019 Sep 25;10(1):4359. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12328-w.
Ensuring that one gene's transcription does not inappropriately affect the expression of its neighbors is a fundamental challenge to gene regulation in a genomic context. In plants, which lack homologs of animal insulator proteins, the mechanisms that prevent transcriptional interference are not well understood. Here we show that BORDER proteins are enriched in intergenic regions and prevent interference between closely spaced genes on the same strand by promoting the 3' pausing of RNA polymerase II at the upstream gene. In the absence of BORDER proteins, 3' pausing associated with the upstream gene is reduced and shifts into the promoter region of the downstream gene. This is consistent with a model in which BORDER proteins inhibit transcriptional interference by preventing RNA polymerase from intruding into the promoters of downstream genes.
确保一个基因的转录不会不恰当地影响其相邻基因的表达，这是基因组背景下基因调控的一个基本挑战。在植物中，由于缺乏动物绝缘子蛋白的同源物，因此防止转录干扰的机制还不是很清楚。在这里，我们表明 BORDER 蛋白在基因间区域富集，并通过促进 RNA 聚合酶 II 在上游基因处的 3'暂停来防止同一链上紧密间隔基因之间的干扰。在没有 BORDER 蛋白的情况下，与上游基因相关的 3'暂停减少，并转移到下游基因的启动子区域。这与一个模型一致，即 BORDER 蛋白通过阻止 RNA 聚合酶侵入下游基因的启动子来抑制转录干扰。
