Schizosaccharomyces pombe (aka fission yeast) cells lacking heterochromatin at centromeres 
have aberrant kinetochores and are defective in segregating chromosomes in mitosis and meiosis

Review - Epigenetic Regulation of Centromere Chromatin: 

Old Dogs, New Tricks?

The histone H3 variant CENP-A is the key determinant of centromere identity and kinetochore assembly. Recent studies have identified many factors that affect CENP-A localization, but their precise roles are unknown. In this collaborative review with Gary Karpen we build on these advances and on new information about the timing of CENP-A assembly during the cell cycle to propose new models for how centromeric chromatin is established and propagated.

See  Allshire and Karpen (2008) Nature Reviews Genetics 9: 923.

Common Ancestry of CENP-A Chaperones Scm3 and HJURP

Analyses with Chris Ponting's lab of Scm3 and HJURP reconcile previous observations by

demonstrating that fungal Scm3 proteins are distant counterparts of human HJURP. Thus,

investigation of Scm3 and associated proteins is likely to be directly relevant to understanding

 the mechanism of HJURP-mediated CENP-A chromatin assembly at human centromeres.

For details see Sanchez-Pulido et al (2009) Cell 137:1173

 

Synthetic Heterochromatin Bypass RNAi and Centromeric Repeats to

Establish Functional Centromeres

 

Artificially tethering the Clr4 H3 lysine 9 methyltransferase to Gal4 binding sites rewires centromeres so that outer repeats, their non-coding RNAs and RNAi rendered redundant in forming functional centromeres.

For details see Kagansky et al (2009) Science 324: 1716-19

Fission Yeast Scm3: A CENP-A Receptor Required for Integrity of Subkinetochore Chromatin

Splicing factors facilitate RNAi-directed silencing

Northern analyses reveals that the amount of siRNA derived from centromeric repeat non-coding transcripts is reduced in specific splicing mutants. 

For details see Bayne et al (2008) Science 322:602-606

             

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•   • Interested in joining us? •   •
Postdoc and Ph.D. student applications always considered
Enquires to: robin.allshire@ed.ac.uk
•   •

at the
Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology
University of Edinburgh

Application Deadline: mid-Dec 2009 to Start Oct 2010
Details: http://www.wcb.ed.ac.uk/phd/
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