Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 23, 2026

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of Histone Modifications from Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Published on: December 29, 2017
Yeast Swd2 is essential because of antagonism between Set1 histone methyltransferase complex and APT (associated with
Luis M Soares1, Stephen Buratowski
1Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Abstract:
The Set1 complex (also known as complex associated with Set1 or COMPASS) methylates histone H3 on lysine 4, with different levels of methylation affecting transcription by recruiting various factors to distinct regions of active genes. Neither Set1 nor its associated proteins are essential for viability with the notable exception of Swd2, a WD repeat protein that is also a subunit of the essential transcription termination factor APT (associated with Pta1). Cells lacking Set1 lose COMPASS recruitment but show increased promoter cross-linking of TFIIE large subunit and the serine 5 phosphorylated form of the Rpb1 C-terminal domain. Although Swd2 is normally required for bringing APT to genes, deletion of SET1 restores both viability and APT recruitment to a strain lacking Swd2. We propose a model in which Swd2 is required for APT to overcome antagonism by COMPASS.
Related Concept Videos
Yeast Signaling
Eukaryotic Transcription Inhibitors
Eukaryotic transcription inhibitors usually contain two distinct domains, a DNA...
Transcription Attenuation in Prokaryotes
There are several different mechanisms used to attenuate transcription. In ribosome mediated...
Protein Complexes with Interchangeable Parts
The SCF ubiquitin ligase is a protein complex of five individual proteins. This complex attaches ubiquitin to other target proteins to mark them for degradation. In order to...

