Nature Genetics 38, 694 - 699 (2006)
Published online: 20 April 2006; | doi:10.1038/ng1792
There is a Corrigendum associated with this Letter. See PDF for details.Genome-wide profiling of PRC1 and PRC2 Polycomb chromatin binding in Drosophila melanogasterBas Tolhuis1, Inhua Muijrers1, 2, Elzo de Wit1, 2, Hans Teunissen1, Wendy Talhout1, Bas van Steensel1
& Maarten van Lohuizen11
Division of Molecular Genetics, and the Centre for Biomedical Genetics, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence should be addressed to Bas van Steensel b.v.steensel@nki.nl or Maarten van Lohuizen m.v.lohuizen@nki.nl Polycomb group (PcG) proteins maintain transcriptional repression of developmentally important genes1 and have been implicated in cell proliferation and stem cell self-renewal2. We used a genome-wide approach3 to map binding patterns of PcG proteins (Pc, esc and Sce) in Drosophila melanogaster Kc cells. We found that Pc associates with large genomic regions of up to  150 kb in size, hereafter referred to as 'Pc domains'. Sce and esc accompany Pc in most of these domains. PcG-bound chromatin is trimethylated at histone H3 Lys27 and is generally transcriptionally silent. Furthermore, PcG proteins preferentially bind to developmental genes. Many of these encode transcriptional regulators and key components of signal transduction pathways, including Wingless, Hedgehog, Notch and Delta. We also identify several new putative functions of PcG proteins, such as in steroid hormone biosynthesis. These results highlight the extensive involvement of PcG proteins in the coordination of development through the formation of large repressive chromatin domains.
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
|
