In this paper, the group of Dr. Sigurd Braun show that in Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the telomere‐associated sequences (TAS) present on most subtelomeres are hyper‐recombinogenic, have metastable nucleosomes, and unusual low levels of H3K9 methylation. Ccq1, a subunit of shelterin, protects TAS from nucleosome loss by recruiting the heterochromatic repressor complexes CLRC and SHREC, thereby linking nucleosome stability to gene silencing. They propose that Ccq1 and fragile subtelomeres co‐evolved to regulate telomere plasticity by controlling nucleosome occupancy and genome stability.
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