Antisense Transcripts in Mutant Strains

The positioning of the nucleosome by ATP-dependent nucleosome remodelers provides the fundamental chromatin environment for the regulation of diverse cellular processes acting on the underlying DNA. Here, we report that the fission yeast CHD remodeler, Hrp3, is a global regulator that drives higher-order chromatin structure and genomic stability. The loss of Hrp3 resulted in the production of antisense transcripts and perturbation of the nucleosome in an ATPase mutant of Hrp3 was also associated with destabilization of the DNA-histone interaction. Furthermore, the effect of Hrp3 in the pericentric region was found to be accomplished via a physical interaction with Swi6, and appeared to cooperate with other heterochromatin factors for gene silencing. Taken together, our data indicate that a well-positioned nucleosome is important for the spatial-temporal control of transcription-associated processes, and show that this is accomplished by the chromatin remodeler, Hrp3, in fission yeast. Two-condition experiment, Mutant vs Wild-type (control)