The chromatin structure of Dictyostelium discoideum

摘要

The principles of three-dimensional organization of chromatin are known for only few model organisms. Here we describe the structure of chromatin and gene expression in the slime mold - Dictyostelium discoideum, and its changes during the life cycle. The slime mold mainly exists as a unicellular amoeba, but during starvation the amoebae start to aggregate and form a multicellular fruit body for reproduction. The genome (34,21 Mb, 6 chromosomes) of D. discoideum is unusual [1]: it has a high gene density, very low GC-content (22,43%) and numerous repeats.