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Science 20 February 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5661, pp. 1182 - 1185
DOI: 10.1126/science.1092938
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Reports

Recruitment and Spreading of the C. elegans Dosage Compensation Complex Along X Chromosomes

Györgyi Csankovszki, Patrick McDonel, Barbara J. Meyer*

To achieve X-chromosome dosage compensation, organisms must distinguish X chromosomes from autosomes. We identified multiple, cis-acting regions that recruit the Caenorhabditis elegans dosage compensation complex (DCC) through a search for regions of X that bind the complex when detached from X. The DCC normally assembles along the entire X chromosome, but not all detached regions recruit the complex, despite having genes known to be dosage compensated on the native X. Thus, the DCC binds first to recruitment sites, then spreads to neighboring X regions to accomplish chromosome-wide gene repression. From a large chromosomal domain, we defined a 793–base pair fragment that functions in vivo as an X-recognition element to recruit the DCC.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3204, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bjmeyer{at}uclink.berkeley.edu.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)