Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : This manuscript is an extended version, including an updated bibliography, of the article: Hierarchical cooperativity mediated by chromatin remodeling; the model of the MMTV transcription regulation. Michel, D. 2011. J. Theor. Biol. 287, 74-81
International audience
Chromatin remodeling machineries are abundant and diverse in eukaryotic cells. They have been involved in a variety of situations such as histone exchange and DNA repair, but their importance in gene expression remains unclear. Although the influence of nucleosome position on the regulation of gene expression is generally envisioned under the quasi-equilibrium perspective, it is proposed that given the ATP-dependence of chro-matin remodeling enzymes, certain mechanisms necessitate non-equilibrium treatments. Examination of the celebrated chromatin remodeling system of the mouse mammary tumor virus, in which the binding of transcription factors opens the way to other ones, reveals that breaking equilibrium offers a subtle mode of transcription factor cooperativity, avoids molecular trapping phenomena and allows to reconcile previously conflicting experimental data. This mechanism provides a control lever of promoter responsiveness to transcription factor combinations, challenging the classical view of the unilateral influence of pioneer on secondary transcription factors.
ISSN: 0022-5193

hal-01211233
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211233
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211233/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211233/file/nucleosome.pdf
ARXIV : 1509.07440

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
A long standing debate in biochemistry is to determine whether the conformational changes observed during biomolecular interactions proceed through conformational selection (of preexisting isoforms) or induced fit (ligand-induced 3D reshaping). The latter mechanism had been invoked in certain circumstances, for example to explain the non-Michaelian activity of monomeric enzymes like glucokinase. But the relative importance of induced fit has been recently depreciated in favor of conformational selection, assumed to be always sufficient, predominant in general and in particular for glucokinase. The relative contributions of conformational selection and induced fit are reconsidered here in and out of equilibrium, in the light of earlier concepts such as the cyclic equilibrium rule and the turning wheel of Wyman, using single molecule state probability, one-way fluxes and net fluxes. The conditions for a switch from conformational selection to induced fit at a given ligand concentration are explicitly determined. Out of equilibrium, the inspection of the enzyme states circuit shows that conformational selection alone would give a Michaelian reaction rate but not the established nonlinear behaviour of glucokinase. Moreover, when induced fit and conformational selection coexist and allow kinetic cooperativity, the net flux emerging in the linkage cycle necessarily corresponds to the induced fit path. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. and Société Française de Biochimie et Biologie Molé
Biochimie

hal-01367150
https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01367150
DOI : 10.1016/j.biochi.2016.06.012

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
The quasi-equilibrium approximation is acceptable when molecular interactions are fast enough compared to circuit dynamics, but is no longer allowed when cellular activities are governed by rare events. A typical example is the lactose operon (lac), one of the most famous paradigms of transcription regulation, for which several theories still coexist to describe its behaviors. The lac system is generally analyzed by using equilibrium constants, contradicting single-event hypotheses long suggested by Novick and Weiner (1957). Enzyme induction as an all-or-none phenomenon. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 43, 553-566) and recently refined in the study of (Choi et al., 2008. A stochastic single-molecule event triggers phenotype switching of a bacterial cell. Science 322, 442-446). In the present report, a lac repressor (LacI)-mediated DNA immunoprecipitation experiment reveals that the natural LacI-lac DNA complex built in vivo is extremely tight and long-lived compared to the time scale of lac expression dynamics, which could functionally disconnect the abortive expression bursts and forbid using the standard modes of lac bistability. As alternatives, purely kinetic mechanisms are examined for their capacity to restrict induction through: (i) widely scattered derepression related to the arrival time variance of a predominantly backward asymmetric random walk and (ii) an induction threshold arising in a single window of derepression without recourse to nonlinear multimeric binding and Hill functions. Considering the complete disengagement of the lac repressor from the lac promoter as the probabilistic consequence of a transient stepwise mechanism, is sufficient to explain the sigmoidal lac responses as functions of time and of inducer concentration. This sigmoidal shape can be misleadingly interpreted as a phenomenon of equilibrium cooperativity classically used to explain bistability, but which has been reported to be weak in this system.
ISSN: 0022-5193

inserm-00818506
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00818506
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00818506/document
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00818506/file/LacI-TeX.pdf
ARXIV : 1312.5566

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer Verlag
Résumé : International audience
A hallmark of living systems is the management and the storage of information through genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Although the notion of epigenetics was originally given to any regulation beyond DNA sequence, it has often been restricted to chromatin modifications, supposed to behave as cis-markers, specifying the sets of genes to be expressed or repressed. This definition does not take into account the initial view of epigenetics, based on nonlinear interaction networks whose "attractors" can remain stable without need for any chromatin mark. In addition, most chromatin modifications are the steady state resultants of highly dynamic modification and de-modification activities and, as such, seem poorly appropriate to work as long-term memory keepers. Instead, the basic support of epigenetic memory could remain the attractors, to which chromatin modifications belong as do many other components. The influence of chromatin modifications in memory is highly questionable when envisioned as static structural marks, but can be recovered under the dynamic circuitry perspective, thanks to their self-templating properties. Beside their standard repressive or permissive functions, chromatin modifications can also influence transcription in multiple ways such as: (1) by randomizing or inversely stabilizing gene expression, (2) by mediating cooperativity between pioneer and secondary transcription factors, and (3) in the hysteresis and the ultrasensitivity of gene expression switches, allowing the cells to take unambiguous transcriptional decisions.
ISSN: 1420-682X

hal-01063617
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01063617
DOI : 10.1007/s00018-012-0923-7
PUBMED : 22331281