Genome-wide binding of THO and Sub2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

THO/TREX is a conserved nuclear complex that functions in mRNP biogenesis and prevents transcription-associated recombination. Whether or not it has a ubiquitous role in the genome is an open question. ChIP-chip studies reveal that the Hpr1 component of THO and the Sub2 RNA-dependent ATPase have genome wide-distributions at active ORFs in yeast. In contrast to RNAPII, evenly distributed from promoter to termination regions, THO and Sub2 are absent at promoters and distributed in a sharp 5’→3’ gradient. Importantly, ChIP-chips reveal an over-recruitment of Rrm3 in active genes in THO mutants that is reduced by overexpression of RNase H1. Our work establishes a genome-wide function for THO-Sub2 in transcription elongation and mRNP biogenesis that function to prevent the accumulation of transcription-mediated replication obstacles, including R-loops. ChIP-chip studies were perfomed with tagged forms of the Hpr1 component of THO (Hpr1-FLAG), the Sub2 RNA-dependent ATPase of TREX (Sub2-FLAG), the Rpb3 subunit of RNA polymerase II (Rpb3-PK) and the Rrm3 protein (Rrm3-FLAG) in the yeast S. cerevisiae.