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Letter
Nature 455, 251-255 (11 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature07217; Received 8 April 2008; Accepted 27 June 2008; Published online 17 August 2008
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Heterochromatin links to centromeric protection by recruiting shugoshin
Yuya Yamagishi1,2, Takeshi Sakuno1,3, Mari Shimura4 & Yoshinori Watanabe1,2
- Laboratory of Chromosome Dynamics, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences,
- Graduate Program in Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, and,
- Promotion of Independence for Young Investigators, University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan
- Department of Intractable Diseases, International Medical Center of Japan, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan
Correspondence to: Yoshinori Watanabe1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.W. (Email: ywatanab@iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp).
Abstract
The centromere of a chromosome is composed mainly of two domains, a kinetochore assembling core centromere and peri-centromeric heterochromatin regions1, 2. The crucial role of centromeric heterochromatin is still unknown, because even in simpler unicellular organisms such as the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the heterochromatin protein Swi6 (HP1 homologue) has several functions at centromeres, including silencing gene expression and recombination, enriching cohesin, promoting kinetochore assembly, and, ultimately, preventing erroneous microtubule attachment to the kinetochores1, 3, 4, 5, 6. Here we show that the requirement of heterochromatin for mitotic chromosome segregation is largely replaced by forcibly enriching cohesin at centromeres in fission yeast. However, this enrichment of cohesin is not sufficient to replace the meiotic requirement for heterochromatin. We find that the heterochromatin protein Swi6 associates directly with meiosis-specific shugoshin Sgo1, a protector of cohesin at centromeres. A point mutation of Sgo1 (V242E), which abolishes the interaction with Swi6, impairs the centromeric localization and function of Sgo1. The forced centromeric localization of Sgo1 restores proper meiotic chromosome segregation in swi6
cells. We also show that the direct link between HP1 and shugoshin is conserved in human cells. Taken together, our findings suggest that the recruitment of shugoshin is the important primary role for centromeric heterochromatin in ensuring eukaryotic chromosome segregation.
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