Nucleosomal TATA-switch: Competing orientations of TATA on the nucleosome

Transcription is known to be affected by the rotational setting of the transcription response elements within nucleosomes. We studied the rotational positioning of the TATA box, the most universal promoter motif. We applied a bioinformatic high-resolution nucleosome mapping technique to eukaryotic promoters. Our results show that the nucleosome DNA sequence harboring the TATA box encodes alternative rotational positions for the same piece of DNA. This may serve for switching the gene activity on and off.