RNA polymerase II promotes the organization of chromatin following DNA replication

Understanding how chromatin organisation is duplicated on the two daughter strands is a central question in epigenetics. In mammals, following the passage of the replisome, nucleosomes lose their defined positioning and transcription contributes to their re-organisation. However, whether transcription plays a greater role in the organization of chromatin following DNA replication remains unclear. Here we have monitored protein re-association to newly replicated DNA upon inhibition of transcription using iPOND coupled to quantitative mass spectrometry. We show that RNAPII acts to promote the re-association of hundreds of proteins with newly replicated chromatin, including ATP-dependent remodellers, transcription factors, DNA repair factors, and histone methyltransferases.