In vivo chromatin organization on native yeast telomeric regions is independent of a cis-telomere loopback conformation.

Our study allows a structural definition of the chromatin found at chromosome ends in budding yeast. This definition, derived with direct in vivo approaches, includes a terminal area that is free of nucleosomes, certain positioned nucleosomes and conserved DNA-bound protein complexes. This organization of subtelomeric and telomeric areas however does not include a telomeric cis-loopback conformation. We propose that the observations on such fold-back structures may report rare and/or transient associations and not stable or constitutive structures.