Progresses on the structure and function of cohesin.

Cohesin is an evolutionarily conserved protein complex in eukaryotes. The four subunits of cohesin form a ring structure that plays an important role in maintaining the orderly arrangement of chromatin during cell division. In addition, metazoan cohesin was found to act as an intermolecular linker, which regulates insulator/enhancer-promoter interactions, leading to either enhancement or inhibition of gene expressions.

Histone variants: the artists of eukaryotic chromatin.

The eukaryotic genome is packaged into a complex nucleoprotein structure named chromatin, balancing the compactness of genome and the accessibility of regulatory proteins and RNA polymerases to DNA. The mechanisms of the regulation of chromatin dynamics include the post-translational modification of histones, alteration of nucleosome positions by chromatin remodelers, replacement of canonical histones by histone variants with the aid of histone chaperones, and dynamic organization of the three-dimensional genome in the small nucleus. Histone variants are different from canonical histones by substitution of several amino acid residues or changes in amino acid sequence.

[Screening for resistance gene candidate from a genomic TAC library of Triticum aestivum-Haynaldia villosa translocation line 6VS/6AL by pooled PCR].

A pair of degenerate primers were designed based on NBS (nucleotide binding site, NBS) domain of resistance(R) gene and used to perform PCR with cDNA from the translocation line 6VS/6AL of Triticum aestivum-Haynaldia villosa. A clone (N7) characterized with NBS was obtained by sequencing analysis. Two specific primers were designed from the N7 sequence and used to screen a genomic TAC (transformation-competent artificial chromosome, TAC) library of 6VS/6AL consisting of ca.