Spatiotemporal expression control correlates with intragenic scaffold matrix attachment regions (S/MARs) in Arabidopsis thaliana.

• Main Authors: Igor V Tetko, Georg Haberer, Stephen Rudd, Blake Meyers, Hans-Werner Mewes, Klaus F X Mayer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2006-03-01
• Series: PLoS Computational Biology
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0020021

Scaffold/matrix attachment regions (S/MARs) are essential for structural organization of the chromatin within the nucleus and serve as anchors of chromatin loop domains. A significant fraction of genes in Arabidopsis thaliana contains intragenic S/MAR elements and a significant correlation of S/MAR presence and overall expression strength has been demonstrated. In this study, we undertook a genome scale analysis of expression level and spatiotemporal expression differences in correlation with the presence or absence of genic S/MAR elements. We demonstrate that genes containing intragenic S/MARs are prone to pronounced spatiotemporal expression regulation. This characteristic is found to be even more pronounced for transcription factor genes. Our observations illustrate the importance of S/MARs in transcriptional regulation and the role of chromatin structural characteristics for gene regulation. Our findings open new perspectives for the understanding of tissue- and organ-specific regulation of gene expression.