The core centromere and Sgo1 establish a 50-kb cohesin-protected domain around centromeres during meiosis I

Abstract

The stepwise loss of cohesins, the complexes that hold sister chromatids together, is required for faithful meiotic chromosome segregation. Cohesins are removed from chromosome arms during meiosis I but are maintained around centromeres until meiosis II. Here we show that Sgo1, a protein required for protecting centromeric cohesins from removal during meiosis I, localizes to cohesin-associated regions (CARs) at the centromere and the 50-kb region surrounding it. Establishment of this Sgo1-binding domain requires the 120-base-pair (bp) core centromere, the kinetochore component Bub1, and the meiosis-specific factor Spo13. Interestingly, cohesins and the kinetochore proteins Iml3 and Chl4 are necessary for Sgo1 to associate with pericentric regions but less so for Sgo1 to associate with the core centromeric regions. Finally, we show that the 50-kb Sgo1-binding domain is the chromosomal region where cohesins are protected from removal during meiosis I. Our results identify the portions of chromosomes where cohesins are protected from removal during meiosis I and show that kinetochore components and cohesins themselves are required to establish this cohesin protective domain.[Keywords: Centromere; cohesion; meiosis; pericentromere; Rec8; Sgo1] Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

DNA microarray technologies for measuring protein–DNA interactions

“…Studies of yeast TFs in multiple cellular states [15] or environmental conditions [·16] highlighted that binding of TFs can be conditiondependent. ChIP-chip also has been used in yeast to examine TATA binding protein (TBP) [17], RNA Pol II transcription initiation and elongation apparatuses [18], RNA Pol III transcription apparatus [19], and a centromere-related factor [20].…”

Meiotic Recombination at the Ends of Chromosomes inSaccharomyces cerevisiae

“…Recombination hot spots that can also be defined by markers that exhibit high levels of gene conversion are frequently associated with nearby DNA double-strand break (DSB) sites, preferred chromatin structures preferentially cleaved during meiotic prophase by the product of the SPO11 gene (Nicolas et al 1989;Malone et al 1994;Lichten and Goldman 1995;Baudat and Nicolas 1997;Keeney et al 1997). Recombination cold spots have been found on many chromosomes, near most centromeres, and in both subtelomeric regions of at least one chromosome (Lambie and Roeder 1986;Kaback 1989;Cherry et al 1997;Su et al 2000;Barton et al 2003;Kiburz et al 2005). While the mechanisms that prevent meiotic recombination within these regions are not known, the endmost 40 kb of most S. cerevisiae chromosomes, which includes most subtelomeric and some adjacent euchromatin-like DNA, appears devoid of prominent meiotic DSB sites detected using RAD50S mutations (Klein et al 1996;Baudat and Nicolas 1997;Gerton et al 2000).…”

Kinetochore Function and Chromosome Segregation Rely on Critical Residues in Histones H3 and H4 in Budding Yeast

“…In budding yeast, there is a single Cenp-A nucleosome positioned at the centromere (Meluh et al 1998;Furuyama and Biggins 2007;Krassovsky et al 2012), as well as additional Cenp-A in the flanking pericentromeric chromatin (Lawrimore et al 2011;Henikoff and Henikoff 2012). While budding yeast pericentromeres lack heterochromatin, a conserved feature is the enrichment of cohesin and Sgo1 to promote kinetochore biorientation (Blat and Kleckner 1999;Tanaka et al 1999;Kiburz et al 2005Kiburz et al , 2008Eckert et al 2007). In addition, evidence suggests that the pericentromeric chromatin adopts a specialized intramolecular structure that is organized by Sgo1 and facilitates biorientation in budding yeast (Yeh et al 2008;Haase et al 2012).…”