Progresses on the structure and function of cohesin.

Cohesin is an evolutionarily conserved protein complex in eukaryotes. The four subunits of cohesin form a ring structure that plays an important role in maintaining the orderly arrangement of chromatin during cell division. In addition, metazoan cohesin was found to act as an intermolecular linker, which regulates insulator/enhancer-promoter interactions, leading to either enhancement or inhibition of gene expressions. However, little is known about the role of cohesin in the transcriptional regulation in plants. In the review, we introduce the structure and core subunits of cohesin, and summarize the factors that regulate its dynamic changes on chromatin. Based on the functional study of plant cohesin in recent years and researches in animals about the roles of cohesin in the three-dimensional genome organization and transcriptional regulation, we prospect the potential functions of plant cohesin in regulating transcription.Cohesin是一类在真核生物进化过程中保守的蛋白复合体,由4个重要亚基相互作用形成环状结构,在细胞分裂过程中参与维持染色体的有序排布。在动物中研究发现cohesin还可以作为分子间的连结器介导绝缘子/增强子-启动子间长距离交互,导致基因表达增强或者抑制,但在植物中关于cohesin在调控基因表达和维持染色体构象方面的研究却相对滞后。本文介绍了cohesin的结构特点和主要组成亚基,对调控cohesin在染色质上动态变化的相关因子进行了总结,并结合近年来植物中cohesin的功能研究和动物中cohesin在三维基因组及转录调控中的重要作用,展望了植物中cohesin在转录调控中的潜在功能。.