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Updated: Nov 14, 2025

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Assay for the Identification of Arabidopsis Protein-DNA Interactions In Vivo
Published on: January 14, 2016
Functional and evolutionary analysis of the Arabidopsis 4R-MYB protein SNAPc4 as part of the SNAP complex
Katharina Thiedig1, Bernd Weisshaar1, Ralf Stracke1
1Faculty of Biology, Genetics and Genomics of Plants, Bielefeld University, Sequenz 1, Bielefeld 33615, Germany.
Abstract:
Transcription initiation of the genes coding for small nuclear RNA (snRNA) has been extensively analyzed in humans and fruit fly, but only a single ortholog of a snRNA-activating protein complex (SNAPc) subunit has so far been characterized in plants. The genome of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana encodes orthologs of all three core SNAPc subunits, including A. thaliana SNAP complex 4 (AtSNAPc4)-a 4R-MYB-type protein with four-and-a-half adjacent MYB repeat units. We report the conserved role of AtSNAPc4 as subunit of a protein complex involved in snRNA gene transcription and present genetic evidence that AtSNAPc4 is an essential gene in gametophyte and zygote development. We present experimental evidence that the three A. thaliana SNAPc subunits assemble into a SNAP complex and demonstrate the binding of AtSNAPc4 to snRNA promoters. In addition, co-localization studies show a link between AtSNAPc4 accumulation and Cajal bodies, known to aggregate at snRNA gene loci in humans. Moreover, we show the strong evolutionary conservation of single-copy 4R-MYB/SNAPc4 genes in a broad range of eukaryotes and present additional shared protein features besides the MYB domain, suggesting a conservation of the snRNA transcription initiation machinery along the course of the eukaryotic evolution.
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