PML bodies: a meeting place for genomic loci?

Promyelocytic leukemia (PML) bodies have been implicated in a variety of cellular processes, such as cell-cycle regulation, apoptosis, proteolysis, tumor suppression, DNA repair and transcription. Despite this, the function of PML bodies is still unknown. Direct and indirect evidence supports the hypothesis that PML bodies interact with specific genes or genomic loci. This includes the finding that the stability of PML bodies is affected by cell stress and changes in chromatin structure. PML bodies also facilitate the transcription and replication of double-stranded DNA viral genomes. Moreover, PML bodies associate with specific regions of high transcriptional activity in the cellular genome. We propose that PML bodies functionally interact with chromatin and are important for the regulation of gene expression.