Title

A distinct type of heterochromatin at the telomeric region of the Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome

Authors

Ruth Nan, Washington University in St. Louis
Sidney Wang, Washington University in St. Louis
Maria Accardo
Monica F. Sentmanat, Washington University in St. LouisFollow
Patrizio Dimitri
Sarah C.R. Elgin, Washington University in St. LouisFollow

Author's School

Arts & Sciences

Author's Department

Biology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2014

Originally Published In

Wang SH, Nan R, Accardo MC, Sentmanat M, Dimitri P, Elgin SC. A distinct type of heterochromatin at the telomeric region of the Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome. PLoS One. 2014;9(1):e86451. Published 2014 Jan 24. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0086451

Abstract

Heterochromatin assembly and its associated phenotype, position effect variegation (PEV), provide an informative system to study chromatin structure and genome packaging. In the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the Y chromosome is entirely heterochromatic in all cell types except the male germline; as such, Y chromosome dosage is a potent modifier of PEV. However, neither Y heterochromatin composition, nor its assembly, has been carefully studied. Here, we report the mapping and characterization of eight reporter lines that show male-specific PEV. In all eight cases, the reporter insertion sites lie in the telomeric transposon array (HeT-A and TART-B2 homologous repeats) of the Y chromosome short arm (Ys). Investigations of the impact on the PEV phenotype of mutations in known heterochromatin proteins (i.e., modifiers of PEV) show that this Ys telomeric region is a unique heterochromatin domain: it displays sensitivity to mutations in HP1a, EGG and SU(VAR)3-9, but no sensitivity to Su(z)2 mutations. It appears that the endo-siRNA pathway plays a major targeting role for this domain. Interestingly, an ectopic copy of 1360 is sufficient to induce a piRNA targeting mechanism to further enhance silencing of a reporter cytologically localized to the Ys telomere. These results demonstrate the diversity of heterochromatin domains, and the corresponding variation in potential targeting mechanisms.

Comments

© 2014 Jordan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unportedlicense, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5176-2510 [Elgin]

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Nan, Ruth; Wang, Sidney; Accardo, Maria; Sentmanat, Monica F.; Dimitri, Patrizio; and Elgin, Sarah C.R., "A distinct type of heterochromatin at the telomeric region of the Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome" (2014). Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations. 179.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bio_facpubs/179