Nature Cell Biology
5, 82 - 84 (2002)
Published online: 23 December 2002; | doi:10.1038/ncb902
The Drosophila HOAP protein is required for telomere cappingGiovanni Cenci1, 3, 4, Giorgia Siriaco1, 4, Grazia D. Raffa1, Rebecca Kellum2
& Maurizio Gatti11
Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Università di Roma 'La Sapienza', 00185 Rome, Italy
2
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0225, USA
3
Present address: Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche ed Ambientali, Università di Lecce, 73100 Lecce, Italy
4
These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence should be addressed to Maurizio Gatti maurizio.gatti@uniroma1.itHOAP (HP1/ORC-associated protein) has recently been isolated1 from Drosophila melanogaster embryos as part of a cytoplasmic complex that contains heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) and the origin recognition complex subunit 2 (ORC2). Here, we show that caravaggio, a mutation in the HOAP-encoding gene, causes extensive telomere−telomere fusions in larval brain cells, indicating that HOAP is required for telomere capping. Our analyses indicate that HOAP is specifically enriched at mitotic chromosome telomeres, and strongly suggest that HP1 and HOAP form a telomere-capping complex that does not contain ORC2.
|
