Nuclear organisation and RNAi in fission yeast

Abstract

Over the last decade, the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been used extensively for investigating RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated heterochromatin assembly. However, only recently have studies begun to shed light on the 3D organisation of chromatin and the RNAi machinery in the fission yeast nucleus. These studies indicate association of repressive and active chromatin with different regions of the nuclear periphery, similar to other model organisms, and clustering of functionally related genomic features. Unexpectedly, RNAi factors were shown to associate with nuclear pores and were implicated in the regulation of genomic features outside of the well-studied heterochromatic regions. Nuclear organisation is likely to contribute to substrate specificity of the RNAi pathway. However, further studies are required to elucidate the exact mechanisms and functional importance of this nuclear organisation.