Dillon N, Grosveld F
National Institute for Medical Research, London, UK.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 1994 Apr;4(2):260-4. doi: 10.1016/s0959-437x(05)80053-x.
Many current models for eukaryotic gene activation and regulation postulate that higher order chromatin structures act as major modulators of gene function. Genetic evidence suggests that nucleosomes and more specifically targeted proteins, such as Polycomb in Drosophila and SIR3 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are involved in creating repressive chromatin structures. In addition, the discovery of locus control regions in vertebrates suggests that the primary information for gene activation can reside entirely in specific combinations of transcription factor binding sites. Difficulties associated with experimental design and interpretation make the investigation of whether domains have discrete functional boundaries problematic, and the concept of the chromatin domain as an integrated structural and functional unit remains to be established.
目前许多真核基因激活和调控模型假定高阶染色质结构是基因功能的主要调节因子。遗传学证据表明核小体，更具体地说是靶向蛋白，如果蝇中的多梳蛋白和酿酒酵母中的SIR3蛋白，参与形成抑制性染色质结构。此外，脊椎动物中基因座控制区的发现表明基因激活的主要信息可能完全存在于转录因子结合位点的特定组合中。与实验设计和解释相关的困难使得研究结构域是否具有离散的功能边界存在问题，染色质结构域作为一个整合的结构和功能单位的概念仍有待确立。
