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Redundant roles for the TFIID and SAGA complexes in global transcription

Nature volume 405, pages 701–704 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

The transcription factors TFIID and SAGA are multi-subunit complexes involved in transcription by RNA polymerase II1,2. TFIID and SAGA contain common TATA-binding protein (TBP)-associated factor (TAFII) subunits and each complex contains a subunit with histone acetyltransferase activity3. These observations have raised questions about whether the functions of the two complexes in vivo are unique or overlapping. Here we use genome-wide expression analysis to investigate how expression of the yeast genome depends on both shared and unique subunits of these two complexes. We find that expression of most genes requires one or more of the common TAFII subunits, indicating that the functions of TFIID and SAGA are widely required for gene expression. Among the subunits shared by TFIID and SAGA are three histone-like TAFIIs, which have been proposed to form a sub-complex and mediate a common function in global transcription. Unexpectedly, we find that the histone-like TAFIIs have distinct roles in expression of the yeast genome. Most importantly, we show that the histone acetylase components of TFIID and SAGA (TAFII145 and Gcn5) are functionally redundant, indicating that expression of a large fraction of yeast genes can be regulated through the action of either complex.

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Figure 1: Whole-genome analysis of genes affected by the shared TAFIIs.
Figure 2: Expression of distinct sets of genes depends on individual subunits of SAGA.
Figure 3: TFIID and SAGA have compensatory functions at a large fraction of genes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Workman for helpful discussions. This work was supported by funds from the NIH. F.C.P.H. was supported by a fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program and E.G.J. is a predoctoral fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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Author notes

  1. Tong Ihn Lee, Helen C. Causton and Fred Winston: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Nine Cambridge Center, Cambridge, 02142, Massachusetts , USA

    Tong Ihn Lee, Helen C. Causton, Frank C. P. Holstege, Nancy Hannett, Ezra G. Jennings & Richard A. Young

  2. Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Tong Ihn Lee, Ezra G. Jennings & Richard A. Young

  3. Department for Medical Genetics University Medical Centre Utrecht, Lunlaan 6, EA Utrecht, 3584, The Netherlands

    Frank C. P. Holstege

  4. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester, 01605, Massachusetts, USA

    Wu-Cheng Shen & Michael R. Green

  5. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Fred Winston

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Correspondence to Richard A. Young.

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Lee, T., Causton, H., Holstege, F. et al. Redundant roles for the TFIID and SAGA complexes in global transcription . Nature 405, 701–704 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35015104

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