scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers by "Julia Zeitlinger published in 2006"


Journal ArticleDOI
18 May 2006-Nature
TL;DR: It is shown that PcG proteins directly repress a large cohort of developmental regulators in murine ES cells, the expression of which would otherwise promote differentiation, and dynamic repression of developmental pathways by Polycomb complexes may be required for maintaining ES cell pluripotency and plasticity during embryonic development.
Abstract: The mechanisms by which embryonic stem (ES) cells self-renew while maintaining the ability to differentiate into virtually all adult cell types are not well understood. Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are transcriptional repressors that help to maintain cellular identity during metazoan development by epigenetic modification of chromatin structure. PcG proteins have essential roles in early embryonic development and have been implicated in ES cell pluripotency, but few of their target genes are known in mammals. Here we show that PcG proteins directly repress a large cohort of developmental regulators in murine ES cells, the expression of which would otherwise promote differentiation. Using genome-wide location analysis in murine ES cells, we found that the Polycomb repressive complexes PRC1 and PRC2 co-occupied 512 genes, many of which encode transcription factors with important roles in development. All of the co-occupied genes contained modified nucleosomes (trimethylated Lys 27 on histone H3). Consistent with a causal role in gene silencing in ES cells, PcG target genes were de-repressed in cells deficient for the PRC2 component Eed, and were preferentially activated on induction of differentiation. Our results indicate that dynamic repression of developmental pathways by Polycomb complexes may be required for maintaining ES cell pluripotency and plasticity during embryonic development.

2,549 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
28 Jul 2006-Science
TL;DR: Evidence is presented that most mitogen-activated protein kinases and protein kinase A subunits become physically associated with the genes that they regulate in the yeast genome, which can be used to more precisely and comprehensively map the regulatory circuitry that eukaryotic cells use to respond to their environment.
Abstract: Cellular signal transduction pathways modify gene expression programs in response to changes in the environment, but the mechanisms by which these pathways regulate populations of genes under their control are not entirely understood. We present evidence that most mitogen-activated protein kinases and protein kinase A subunits become physically associated with the genes that they regulate in the yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) genome. The ability to detect this interaction of signaling kinases with target genes can be used to more precisely and comprehensively map the regulatory circuitry that eukaryotic cells use to respond to their environment.

255 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: JBD uses additional easily obtainable experimental data about chromatin immunoprecipitation to improve the spatial resolution of the transcription factor binding locations inferred from ChIP followed by DNA microarray hybridization data and produces positional priors that link ChIP-Chip data to sequence data by guiding motif discovery to inferred protein-DNA binding sites.
Abstract: Direct physical information that describes where transcription factors, nucleosomes, modified histones, RNA polymerase II and other key proteins interact with the genome provides an invaluable mechanistic foundation for understanding complex programs of gene regulation. We present a method, joint binding deconvolution (JBD), which uses additional easily obtainable experimental data about chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) to improve the spatial resolution of the transcription factor binding locations inferred from ChIP followed by DNA microarray hybridization (ChIP-Chip) data. Based on this probabilistic model of binding data, we further pursue improved spatial resolution by using sequence information. We produce positional priors that link ChIP-Chip data to sequence data by guiding motif discovery to inferred protein-DNA binding sites. We present results on the yeast transcription factors Gcn4 and Mig2 to demonstrate JBD's spatial resolution capabilities and show that positional priors allow computational discovery of the Mig2 motif when a standard approach fails.

99 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the version of this article initially published, errors appeared in equations 1–6 and in the expression at the end of the first line after equation 4.
Abstract: Nat. Biotechnol. 24, 963–970 (2006); published online 9 August 2006; corrected after print 10 October 2006 In the version of this article initially published, errors appeared in equations 1–6 and in the expression at the end of the first line after equation 4. Some errors appeared in the print only and others in the online pdf only.

4 citations