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Context is everything: activators can also repress

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Maintenance of genome integrity, cell division and gene expression have all been shown to be regulated by the condensation of DNA into heterochromatin. In a study published in this issue, Bulut-Karslioglu et al. reveal a new heterochromatin function for transcription factors in a mammalian system. They show that instead of activating gene expression, in the context of heterochromatic repeats, specific transcription factors are necessary for the maintenance of transcriptional repression and heterochromatin.

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Figure 1: The context of a genomic region is important for defining heterochromatin.
Figure 2: Model for targeting heterochromatin to the pericentromeric repeats.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Richard Festenstein and Jackson P. K. Chan are at the Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College, London, UK.,

    Richard Festenstein & Jackson P K Chan

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  1. Richard Festenstein
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  2. Jackson P K Chan
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Correspondence to Richard Festenstein.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Festenstein, R., Chan, J. Context is everything: activators can also repress. Nat Struct Mol Biol 19, 973–975 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2401

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