The role of Drosophila boundary elements and insulators in chromatin mobility

Abstract

The question how the structure influences the gene function is one of the most important problems in nuclear architecture research. Molecular genetic evidences suggest that eukaryotic chromatin is organized into domains that separate neighboring genes physically and functionally. Specialized DNA elements called chromatin boundaries or insulators have been identified that delimit genome regions of distinct chromatin structure and gene activity. Although the exact mechanism underlying insulator activity is not known, recent studies suggest that regulated assembly of chromatin boundaries result in higher order protein complexes and organization of the chromatin architecture. The thesis project consisted of the generation of flylines containing insulator elements combined with LacO/LacI-GFP reporter system in order to investigate the influence of these elements on the mobility of chromatin sequences