Unusual compartmentalization of CTCF and other transcription factors in the course of terminal erythroid differentiation

It is demonstrated that in chicken embryonic and mature erythrocyte nuclei the distribution of a versatile transcription factor CTCF differs drastically from its distribution in nuclei of proliferating erythroid and non-erythroid cells. In the latter case CTCF was distributed throughout the whole nucleus volume, being concentrated in many small compartments (punctuate nuclear staining). In contrast, in embryonic and mature erythrocytes CTCF was concentrated in a limited number of large compartments. These large CTCF-containing compartments were not observed in other cells. Occasionally, but not in all cells, some of these compartments were localized close to nucleoli but did not colocalize with them. In mature erythrocytes a clear exclusion of CTCF-containing compartments from the chromatin domain was observed. This exclusion correlated with a tight association of CTCF with the nuclear matrix. Concentration in relatively large compartments and exclusion from the chromatin domain in nuclei of mature erythrocytes were also observed for RNA polymerase II and several transcription factors. The data are discussed in the context of a hypothesis postulating that relocalization of different components of the transcriptional machinery from the chromatin domain into the interchromatin compartment is an important step of the terminal inactivation of chicken erythrocyte nuclei.