Xist spatially amplifies SHARP/SPEN recruitment to balance chromosome-wide silencing and specificity to the X chromosome.

ABSTRACT: Although thousands of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are encoded in mammalian genomes, their mechanisms of action are poorly understood, in part because they are often expressed at lower levels than their proposed targets. One such lncRNA is Xist, which mediates chromosome-wide gene silencing on one of the two X chromosomes (X) to achieve gene expression balance between males and females. How a limited number of Xist molecules can mediate robust silencing of a much larger number of target genes while maintaining specificity exclusively to genes on the X within each cell is not well understood. Here, we show that Xist drives non-stoichiometric recruitment of the essential silencing protein SHARP (also known as SPEN) to amplify its abundance across the inactive X, including at regions not di

SUBMITTER: Jachowicz JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8969943 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature