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Using human artificial chromosomes to study centromere assembly and function

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Abstract

Centromeres are the site of assembly of the kinetochore, which directs chromosome segregation during cell division. Active centromeres are characterized by the presence of nucleosomes containing CENP-A and a specific chromatin environment that resembles that of active genes. Recent work using human artificial chromosomes (HAC) sheds light on the fine balance of different histone post-translational modifications and transcription that exists at centromeres for kinetochore assembly and maintenance. Here, we review the use of HAC technology to understand centromere assembly and function. We put particular emphasis on studies using the alphoidtetO HAC, whose centromere can be specifically modified for epigenetic engineering studies.

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Correspondence to Oscar Molina or William C. Earnshaw.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, of which W.C.E. is a Principal Research Fellow (grant number 073915). O.M. was funded by the European Molecular Biology Organization (long-term EMBO fellowship; ALTF-453-2012). The Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NCI Center for Cancer Research (V.L. and N.K.) and MEXT KAKENHI grant numbers 23247030, 23114008 and the Kazusa DNA Research Institute Foundation (H.M.).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Molina, O., Kouprina, N., Masumoto, H. et al. Using human artificial chromosomes to study centromere assembly and function. Chromosoma 126, 559–575 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-017-0633-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-017-0633-x

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