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First published online 2 August 2005
doi: 10.1242/jcs.02498

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Tandem repetitive transgenes and fluorescent chromatin tags alter local interphase chromosome arrangement in Arabidopsis thaliana

Ales Pecinka^1,, Naohiro Kato^2,*,, Armin Meister¹, Aline V. Probst³, Ingo Schubert¹ and Eric Lam^2,

¹ Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Corrensstrasse 3, 06466 Gatersleben, Germany
² Biotech Center for Agriculture and the Environment, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 59 Dudley Road, Foran Hall, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
³ Laboratory of Plant Genetics, University of Geneva, 30 Quai Ernset Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland

Author for correspondence (e-mail: lam{at}aesop.rutgers.edu)

Accepted 13 May 2005

Fluorescent protein chromatin tagging as achieved by the lac operator/lac repressor system is useful to trace distinct chromatin domains in living eukaryotic nuclei. To interpret the data correctly, it is important to recognize influences of the tagging system on nuclear architecture of the host cells. Within an Arabidopsis line that carries lac operator/lac repressor/GFP transgenes, the transgene loci frequently associate with each other and with heterochromatic chromocenters. Accumulation of tagged fusion protein further enhances the association frequency. Independent experiments with a transgenic plant carrying another multi-copy transgene also revealed, independent of its transcriptional state, unusually high frequencies of association with each other and with heterochromatin. From these results we conclude that the lac operator/lac repressor chromatin tagging system may alter the spatial chromatin organization in the host nuclei (in particular when more than one insertion locus is present) and also that loci of homologous transgenic repeats associate more often with each other and with endogenous heterochromatin than normal euchromatic regions.

Key words: Arabidopsis thaliana, Fluorescent chromatin tag, Homologous pairing, Interphase chromosomes, Heterochromatin

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