Transcription mediated insulation and interference direct gene cluster expression switches
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Abstract
In yeast, many tandemly arranged genes show peak expression in different phases of the metabolic cycle (YMC) or in different carbon sources, indicative of regulation by a bi-modal switch, but it is not clear how these switches are controlled. Using native elongating transcript analysis (NET-seq), we show that transcription itself is a component of bi-modal switches, facilitating reciprocal expression in gene clusters. HMS2, encoding a growth-regulated transcription factor, switches between sense- or antisense-dominant states that also coordinate up- and down-regulation of transcription at neighbouring genes. Engineering HMS2 reveals alternative mono-, di- or tri-cistronic and antisense transcription units (TUs), using different promoter and terminator combinations, that underlie state-switching. Promoters or terminators are excluded from functional TUs by read-through transcriptional interference, while antisense TUs insulate downstream genes from interference. We propose that the balance of transcriptional insulation and interference at gene clusters facilitates gene expression switches during intracellular and extracellular environmental change.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Joaquin M Espinosa, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Colorado, United States
Version history
- Received: June 8, 2014
- Accepted: November 17, 2014
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 19, 2014 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: December 24, 2014 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2014, Nguyen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Transcription mediated insulation and interference direct gene cluster expression switches
eLife 3:e03635.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03635
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