This proposal is to obtain partial funding for the 14th meeting of the Gordon Research Conference entitled """"""""Chromatin Structure and Function."""""""" Since its inception in 1972, the """"""""Chromatin"""""""" Gordon Conference has played a central role in maintaining communication and collaboration among the diverse group of scientists who find that an understanding of chromatin structure and function is critical to their work. Participants include scientists from the subdisciplines of genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, biochemistry and biophysics, as well as others. The focus of the Conference in 1998 will be on analysis of the multiple levels of chromatin organization and chromatin-mediated gene repression from the nucleosome to higher order chromatin folding and the mitotic chromosome. The cellular mechanisms by which the diverse processes are selectively regulated to allow or facilitate gene expression is a complementary focus. Although based on fundamental chromatin research, the Conference topics have clear links to health and disease. For example, dysregulation of chromatin functions on the sex chromosomes lead to developmental abnormality, and discovery of a chromosomal fusion of a putative histone acetyltransferase MOZ with a transcriptional coactivator/histone acetyltransferase CBP in a subtype of acute myeloid leukemia hay provide the first connection between chromatin biochemistry and cancer. Moreover, definition of a non-random spatial location of numerous genes in the cell nucleus provides an global architecture framework for analysis of gene organization and function on a genome-wide basis. The program and speakers (*discussion leaders) are as follows: 1. Histone Modification--David Allis*, Donald Ayer, Shelly Berger, Michael Grunstein 2. Mechanisms of Silencing--Jim Broach, Susan Gasser, Lorraine Pillus, Sharon Roth* 3. Replication and Assembly-- Peter Becker, Can Gottschling, Jim Kadonaga*, Bruce Stillman 4. Chromosome organization and condensation--Tatsuya Hirano, Douglas Koshland*, John Sedat, Uli Laemmli 5. Imprinting, X-inactivation, dosage compensation--Howard Cedar, Rudy Jaenisch, Mitzi Kuroda, Barbara Meyer, Shirley Tilghman* 6. Heterochromatin and centromers-- Sarah Elgin* Gary Karpen, Mitchell Smith, Kevin Sullivan 7. Transcriptional insulators and chromatin regulators--Victor Corces*, Pamela Geyer, Renato Paro, Vincenzo Pirotta 8. Nucleosome structure and transcription--Grary Felsenfeld, Roger Kornber*, Tim Richmond, Alan Wolffe 9. Chromatin and transcription--Beverly Emerson*, Frank Grosveld, Robert Kingston, Fred Winston.
