Progesterone receptor interaction with chromatin

Understanding how eukaryotic gene regulation works implies unraveling the mechanisms used by transcription factors to access DNA information packaged in chromatin. The current view is that different cell types express different parts of the genome because they are equipped with different sets of transcription factors. A few transcription factors are called pioneer factors because they are able to bind to their sites in nucleosomes and to open up chromatin thus enabling access for other transcription factors, which are unable to recognize DNA packaged in nucleosomes. But it is also possible that the way DNA is organized in chromatin differs between cell types and contributes to cell identity by restricting or enhancing access to specific gene cohorts. To unravel these mechanisms we studied the interaction of progesterone receptor with the genome of breast cancer cells and found that it binds preferentially to sites organized in nucleosomes, which contribute to functional interactions leading to gene regulation.