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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 mustdistinguish X chromosomes from autosomes. We identified multiple,cis-acting regions that recruit the Caenorhabditis elegans dosagecompensation complex (DCC) through a search for regions of Xthat bind the complex when detached from X. The DCC normallyassembles along the entire X chromosome, but not all detachedregions recruit the complex, despite having genes known to bedosage compensated on the native X. Thus, the DCC binds firstto recruitment sites, then spreads to neighboring X regionsto accomplish chromosome-wide gene repression. From a largechromosomal domain, we defined a 793–base pair fragmentthat functions in vivo as an X-recognition element to recruitthe 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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