Scientists have had a number of questions about these important bridging proteins, called cohesins. For example, how and where do the proteins attach themselves to the DNA? To protect genes from inappropriate activation, DNA is tightly wrapped around small proteins called histones and then further coiled into a higher structure called chromatin that serves as an effective accessibility barrier to the genes.
In a new study in the August 29 issue of Nature, researchers at The Wistar Institute identify a cohesin-containing protein complex that reshapes chromatin to allow cohesins to bind to DNA. In doing so, they also identified the locations on the human genome where the cohesins bind. Somewhat to their surprise, the binding sites were found to be a repetitive DNA sequence found throughout the human genome for which no previous role had ever been identified. These bits of DNA, known as Alu sequences, are liberally represented along those vast stretches of the human genome not known to directly control genetic activity, sometimes referred to as junk DNA.
"One thing that interested us is that there are 500 thousand to 1 million Alu repeats across the human genome," says Ramin Shiekhattar, Ph.D., an associate professor at The Wistar Institute and senior author on the Nature study. "These sequences are very common. And this makes sense if one of their roles is to bind to the bridging proteins, the cohesin
'"/>
Contact: Franklin Hoke
hoke@wistar.upenn.edu
215-898-3716
The Wistar Institute
28-Aug-2002