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First published online 19 September 2006
doi: 10.1242/jcs.03183

Journal of Cell Science 119, 4165-4175 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
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Research Article

Dynamics and anchoring of heterochromatic loci during development

Rajika Thakar1, Geoff Gordon2 and Amy K. Csink1,*

1 Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
2 Center for Automated Learning and Discovery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: csink{at}andrew.cmu.edu)

Accepted 24 July 2006

Positioning a euchromatic gene near heterochromatin can influence its expression. To better understand expression-relevant changes in locus positioning, we monitored in vivo movement of centromeres and a euchromatic locus (with and without a nearby insertion of heterochromatin) in developing Drosophila tissue. In most undifferentiated nuclei, the rate of diffusion and step size of the locus is unaffected by the heterochromatic insertion. Interestingly, although the movement observed here is non directional, the heterochromatic insertion allows the flanking euchromatic region to enter and move within the heterochromatic compartment. This study also finds that a constraint on chromatin movement is imposed which is a factor of distance from the centric heterochromatic compartment. This restraint prevents the heterochromatic locus from moving away from the centric heterochromatin compartment. Therefore, because of the constraint, even distinct and non-random nuclear organizations can be attained from random chromatin movements. We also find a general constraint on chromatin movement is imposed during differentiation, which stabilizes changes in nuclear organization in differentiated nuclei.

Key words: Chromatin dynamics, Nuclear organization, Differentiation, Heterochromatin




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