Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Jan 18;84(2):194-201.
doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2023.10.045. Epub 2023 Nov 27.

Epigenetic pioneering by SWI/SNF family remodelers

Kami Ahmad  1 , Sandipan Brahma  2 , Steven Henikoff  3
Affiliations
Review

Epigenetic pioneering by SWI/SNF family remodelers

Kami Ahmad et al. Mol Cell. .

Abstract

In eukaryotic genomes, transcriptional machinery and nucleosomes compete for binding to DNA sequences; thus, a crucial aspect of gene regulatory element function is to modulate chromatin accessibility for transcription factor (TF) and RNA polymerase binding. Recent structural studies have revealed multiple modes of TF engagement with nucleosomes, but how initial "pioneering" results in steady-state DNA accessibility for further TF binding and RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) engagement has been unclear. Even less well understood is how distant sites of open chromatin interact with one another, such as when developmental enhancers activate promoters to release RNAPII for productive elongation. Here, we review evidence for the centrality of the conserved SWI/SNF family of nucleosome remodeling complexes, both in pioneering and in mediating enhancer-promoter contacts. Consideration of the nucleosome unwrapping and ATP hydrolysis activities of SWI/SNF complexes, together with their architectural features, may reconcile steady-state TF occupancy with rapid TF dynamics observed by live imaging.

Keywords: ATP-dependent remodeling; cancer; chromatin; development; gene regulation; histone; nucleosome; transcription factor.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Luger K, Mader AW, Richmond RK, Sargent DF and Richmond TJ (1997). Crystal structure of the nucleosome core particle at 2.8 A resolution. Nature 389, 251–260. - PubMed
    1. Workman JL (2006). Nucleosome displacement in transcription. Genes Dev 20, 2009–17. - PubMed
    1. Stalder J, Larsen A, Engel JD, Dolan M, Groudine M and Weintraub H (1980). Tissue-specific DNA cleavages in the globin chromatin domain introduced by DNAase I. Cell 20, 451–60. - PubMed
    1. Wu C (1980). The 5’ ends of Drosophila heat shock genes in chromatin are hypersensitive to DNase I. Nature 286, 854–60. - PubMed
    1. Lay FD, Kelly TK and Jones PA (2018). Nucleosome Occupancy and Methylome Sequencing (NOMe-seq). Methods Mol Biol 1708, 267–284. - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
twitter 2