Role of chromatin structure in the regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II

Recent studies on chromatin have concentrated on the relationship between its structure and gene activity. This topic, which addresses the fundamental mechanisms by which genes are expressed, has become a controversial issue, and the present data support the hypothesis that the structure of chromatin is an important component of transcriptional regulation. Notwithstanding, the complexity of this problem suggests that the current models are probably only a rough approximation of the truth.