TY - JOUR
T1 - A Polycomb repressive complex is required for RNAi-mediated heterochromatin formation and dynamic distribution of nuclear bodies
AU - Xu, Jing
AU - Zhao, Xiaolu
AU - Mao, Fengbiao
AU - Basrur, Venkatesha
AU - Ueberheide, Beatrix
AU - Chait, Brian T.
AU - David Allis, C.
AU - Taverna, Sean D.
AU - Gao, Shan
AU - Wang, Wei
AU - Liu, Yifan
N1 - Funding Information:
J.X. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31572253) and Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (201901D111008). V.B. was supported by Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan. B.T.C. was supported by NIH (5P41 GM103314). C.D.A. was supported the Rockefeller University. C.F. was supported by NIH (R01 GM077582). R.S.C. was supported by NSF (1158346). S.D.T. was supported by NIH (R01 GM106024) and the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. S.G. was supported by the Taishan Scholar Program of Shandong Province, the Marine S&T Fund of Shandong Province for Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) (2018SDKJ0406-2) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (201841005). W.W. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31872224). Y.L. was supported by NIH (R01 GM087343), Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan, and Department of Biochemistry &Molecular Medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.
PY - 2021/6/4
Y1 - 2021/6/4
N2 - Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are widely utilized for transcriptional repression in eukaryotes. Here, we characterize, in the protist Tetrahymena thermophila, the EZL1 (E(z)-like 1) complex, with components conserved in metazoan Polycomb Repressive Complexes 1 and 2 (PRC1 and PRC2). The EZL1 complex is required for histone H3 K27 and K9 methylation, heterochromatin formation, transposable element control, and programmed genome rearrangement. The EZL1 complex interacts with EMA1, a helicase required for RNA interference (RNAi). This interaction is implicated in co-transcriptional recruitment of the EZL1 complex. Binding of H3K27 and H3K9 methylation by PDD1-another PcG protein interacting with the EZL1 complex-reinforces its chromatin association. The EZL1 complex is an integral part of Polycomb bodies, which exhibit dynamic distribution in Tetrahymena development: Their dispersion is driven by chromatin association, while their coalescence by PDD1, likely via phase separation. Our results provide a molecular mechanism connecting RNAi and Polycomb repression, which coordinately regulate nuclear bodies and reorganize the genome.
AB - Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are widely utilized for transcriptional repression in eukaryotes. Here, we characterize, in the protist Tetrahymena thermophila, the EZL1 (E(z)-like 1) complex, with components conserved in metazoan Polycomb Repressive Complexes 1 and 2 (PRC1 and PRC2). The EZL1 complex is required for histone H3 K27 and K9 methylation, heterochromatin formation, transposable element control, and programmed genome rearrangement. The EZL1 complex interacts with EMA1, a helicase required for RNA interference (RNAi). This interaction is implicated in co-transcriptional recruitment of the EZL1 complex. Binding of H3K27 and H3K9 methylation by PDD1-another PcG protein interacting with the EZL1 complex-reinforces its chromatin association. The EZL1 complex is an integral part of Polycomb bodies, which exhibit dynamic distribution in Tetrahymena development: Their dispersion is driven by chromatin association, while their coalescence by PDD1, likely via phase separation. Our results provide a molecular mechanism connecting RNAi and Polycomb repression, which coordinately regulate nuclear bodies and reorganize the genome.
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U2 - 10.1093/nar/gkaa1262
DO - 10.1093/nar/gkaa1262
M3 - Article
C2 - 33412588
AN - SCOPUS:85108123642
SN - 0305-1048
VL - 49
SP - 5407
EP - 5425
JO - Nucleic acids research
JF - Nucleic acids research
IS - 10
ER -