Additive inheritance of histone modifications in Arabidopsis thaliana intra-specific hybrids

Plant genomes are earmarked with defined patterns of chromatin marks. Little is known about the stability of these epigenomes when related, but distinct genomes are brought together by intra‐species hybridization. Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and their reciprocal hybrids were used as a model system to investigate the dynamics of histone modification patterns. The genome‐wide distribution of histone modifications H3K4me2 and H3K27me3 in the inbred parental accessions Col‐0, C24 and Cvi and their hybrid offspring was compared by chromatin immunoprecipitation in combination with genome tiling array hybridization. The analysis revealed that, in addition to DNA sequence polymorphisms, chromatin modification variations exist among accessions of A. thaliana. The range of these variations was higher for H3K27me3 (typically a repressive mark) than for H3K4me2 (typically an active mark). H3K4me2 and H3K27me3 were rather stable in response to intra‐species hybridization, with mainly additive inheritance in hybrid offspring. In conclusion, intra‐species hybridization does not result in gross changes to chromatin modifications.     

What's Nu(SAP) in mitosis and cancer?

Unperturbed mitosis is a prerequisite for the generation of two genetically identical daughter cells. Nucleolar-spindle associated protein (NuSAP) is an important mitotic regulator. The activity of NuSAP is essential for a variety of cellular events that occur during mitosis starting from spindle assembly to cytokinesis. In addition to playing crucial roles during mitosis, NuSAP has been in the spotlight recently due to different studies exhibiting its importance in embryogenesis and cancer. In this review, we have extensively mined the current literature and made connections between different studies involving NuSAP. Importantly, we have assembled data pertaining to NuSAP from several proteomic studies and analyzed it thoroughly. Our review focuses on the role of NuSAP in mitosis and cancer, and brings to light several unanswered questions regarding the regulation of NuSAP in mitosis and its role in carcinogenesis.     

RNA sequencing reveals two major classes of gene expression levels in metazoan cells

The expression level of a gene is often used as a proxy for determining whether the protein or RNA product is functional in a cell or tissue. Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to understand the global distribution of gene expression levels, and to be able to interpret it mechanistically and functionally. Here we use RNA sequencing (RNA‐seq) of mouse Th2 cells, coupled with a range of other techniques, to show that all genes can be separated, based on their expression abundance, into two distinct groups: one group comprised of lowly expressed and putatively non‐functional mRNAs, and the other of highly expressed mRNAs with active chromatin marks at their promoters. These observations are confirmed in many other microarray and RNA‐seq data sets of metazoan cell types.