Analysis of Chromatin Transitions by Real-Time Quantitative PCR

This technical note describes a method to monitor chromatin transitions at the PHO5 promoter, which undergoes profound changes in its chromatin structure upon transcriptional activation (Boeger et al. 2003). The assay we describe tests the accessibility of the yeast PHO5 promoter region to cleavage by the ClaI restriction endonuclease, which can be quantitated using real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) in cells repressed or activated for PHO5 expression.