Genes upregulated during erythroid differentiation occupy common regions of the nucleus which involve multiple transcription factories

摘要

We have previously demonstrated that the human alpha- and beta-globin genes are frequently in close spatial proximity when transcribing, although this positioning is not essential for regulation of gene expression. Our findings suggested that nuclear sublocalisation may be influenced by the way in which particular loci are packaged into chromatin, which differs for example between the alpha-globin loci of man and mouse. We investigated the basis of the globin gene associations in a mouse in which the endogenous alpha-globin regulatory domain has been replaced by the human syntenic region (approx 112 2 kb) and show that the Vhumanised locus behaves like the normal mouse locus. This work confirms that the frequency with whicli expressed genes associate is strongly influenced by local chromatin environment.