The genome of Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malaria in Africa, has been extensively studied since it was first fully sequenced in 2002. However, many open questions remain, including understanding the chromosomal context of molecular evolutionary changes (e.g., relationship between chromosome map and phylogenetic conservation, patterns of gene duplication, and patterns of select...

Until very recently, little was known about the chromatin structure of the telomeres and subtelomeric regions in Plasmodium falciparum. In yeast and Drosophila melanogaster, chromatin structure has long been known to be an important aspect in the regulation and functioning of these regions. Telomeres and subtelomeric regions are enriched in epigenetic marks that are specific to heterochromatin,...

F acioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is the third most common form of muscular disorder with an autosomal dominant trait, and its frequency is about one in 20 000. It is characterised by weakness and atrophy of the facial, shoulder girdle, and upper limb muscles. The pelvic girdle and lower limbs subsequently also become involved, and, eventually, 20% of patients have to use wheelchai...

Telomeres and adjacent subtelomeric regions are packaged as heterochromatin in many organisms. The heterochromatic features include DNA methylation, histones H3-Lys9 (Lysine 9) and H4-Lys20 (Lysine 20) methylation and heterochromatin protein1 alpha binding. Subtelomeric DNA is hypomethylated in human sperm and ova, and these regions are subjected to de novo methylation during development. In mi...

Two errors were introduced during the production process. In the last two columns of Table I, a capital D erroneously appeared in the headings. The headings for those columns should be ∆nup133 and ∆nup170. The fi rst sentence under the heading " Esc1p affects subtelomeric repair and telomere positioning " on page 194 should correctly read " We have established above (see previous paragraphs) th...

F acioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is the third most common form of muscular disorder with an autosomal dominant trait, and its frequency is about one in 20 000. It is characterised by weakness and atrophy of the facial, shoulder girdle, and upper limb muscles. The pelvic girdle and lower limbs subsequently also become involved, and, eventually, 20% of patients have to use wheelchai...

Although subtelomeric regions in humans are heterochromatic, the epigenetic nature of human telomeres remains controversial. This controversy might have been influenced by the confounding effect of subtelomeric regions and interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) on telomeric chromatin structure analyses. In addition, different human cell lines might carry diverse epigenetic marks at telomeres. ...

Subtelomeric rearrangements are an important cause of both sporadic and familial idiopathic mental retardation (MR) and/or congenital malformation syndromes. We report on a cohort of 107 children with idiopathic MR and normal karyotype 450-550 band level by GTG banding screened for subtelomeric rearrangements by multiprobe fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). In these cases, five patients...

Transcription factors are most commonly thought of as proteins that regulate expression of specific genes, independently of the order of those genes along the chromosome. By screening genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) profiles in yeast, we find that more than 10% of DNA-binding transcription factors concentrate at the subtelomeric regions near to chromosome ends. None of the prot...

The heterochromatic environment and physical clustering of chromosome ends at the nuclear periphery provide a functional and structural framework for antigenic variation and evolution of subtelomeric virulence gene families in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. While recent studies assigned important roles for reversible histone modifications, silent information regulator 2 and heteroc...