Competition between histone and transcription factor binding regulates the onset of transcription in zebrafish embryos
- Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Germany
- Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Germany
Abstract
Upon fertilization, the genome of animal embryos remains transcriptionally inactive until the maternal-to-zygotic transition. At this time, the embryo takes control of its development and transcription begins. How the onset of zygotic transcription is regulated remains unclear. Here, we show that a dynamic competition for DNA binding between nucleosome-forming histones and transcription factors regulates zebrafish genome activation. Taking a quantitative approach, we found that the concentration of non-DNA bound core histones sets the time for the onset of transcription. The reduction in nuclear histone concentration that coincides with genome activation does not affect nucleosome density on DNA, but allows transcription factors to compete successfully for DNA binding. In agreement with this, transcription factor binding is sensitive to histone levels and the concentration of transcription factors also affects the time of transcription. Our results demonstrate that the relative levels of histones and transcription factors regulate the onset of transcription in the embryo.
Article and author information
Author details
Nadine L Vastenhouw
Funding
Human Frontier Science Program (CDA00060/2012)
- Nadine L Vastenhouw
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Shai R Joseph
- Mukesh Kumar
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Vasily Zaburdaev
- Andrej Shevchenko
- Nadine L Vastenhouw
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Joseph et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Competition between histone and transcription factor binding regulates the onset of transcription in zebrafish embryos
eLife 6:e23326.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23326
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