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Full circle: a brief history of cohesin and the regulation of gene expression
Author(s) -
Horsfield Julia A.
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
the febs journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.981
H-Index - 204
eISSN - 1742-4658
pISSN - 1742-464X
DOI - 10.1111/febs.16362
Subject(s) - cohesin , establishment of sister chromatid cohesion , chromatin , biology , chromatid , genetics , separase , microbiology and biotechnology , regulation of gene expression , gene , mitosis , chromosome
The cohesin complex has a range of crucial functions in the cell. Cohesin is essential for mediating chromatid cohesion during mitosis, for repair of double‐strand DNA breaks, and for control of gene transcription. This last function has been the subject of intense research ever since the discovery of cohesin's role in the long‐range regulation of the cut gene in Drosophila. Subsequent research showed that the expression of some genes is exquisitely sensitive to cohesin depletion, while others remain relatively unperturbed. Sensitivity to cohesin depletion is also remarkably cell type‐ and/or condition‐specific. The relatively recent discovery that cohesin is integral to forming chromatin loops via loop extrusion should explain much of cohesin's gene regulatory properties, but surprisingly, loop extrusion has failed to identify a ‘one size fits all’ mechanism for how cohesin controls gene expression. This review will illustrate how early examples of cohesin‐dependent gene expression integrate with later work on cohesin's role in genome organization to explain mechanisms by which cohesin regulates gene expression.