University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications
UMMS Affiliation
Program in Molecular Medicine; Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology
Publication Date
2019-06-21
Document Type
Article Preprint
Disciplines
Bioinformatics | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Genetic Phenomena | Genetics and Genomics | Nucleic Acids, Nucleotides, and Nucleosides
Abstract
In Drosophila, transposon-silencing piRNAs are derived from heterochromatic clusters and a subset of euchromatic transposon insertions, which are transcribed from internal non-canonical initiation sites and flanking canonical promoters. Rhino binds to Deadlock, which recruits TRF2 to promote non-canonical transcription of these loci. Cuff co-localizes with Rhino and Del. The role of Cuff is less well understood, but the cuff gene shows hallmarks of adaptive evolution, which frequently targets functional interactions within host defense systems. We show that Drosophila simulans cuff is a dominant negative allele when expressed in Drosophila melanogaster, where it traps Deadlock, TRF2 and the transcriptional co-repressor CtBP in stable nuclear complexes. Cuff promotes Rhino and Deadlock localization, driving non-canonical transcription. CtBP, by contrast, suppresses canonical cluster and transposon transcription, which interferes with downstream non-canonical transcription and piRNA production. Cuff, TRF2 and CtBP thus form a network that balances canonical and non-canonical piRNA precursor transcription.
Keywords
genetics, adaptive evolution, piRNA, transcription network, drosophila, transposon, transcription
Rights and Permissions
The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
DOI of Published Version
10.1101/678227
Source
bioRxiv 678227; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/678227. Link to preprint on bioRxiv service.
Journal/Book/Conference Title
bioRxiv
Repository Citation
Parhad, Swapnil S.; Yu, Tianxiong; Zhang, Gen; Rice, Nicholas P.; Weng, Zhiping; and Theurkauf, William E., "Adaptive evolution targets a piRNA precursor transcription network" (2019). University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications. 1613.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/faculty_pubs/1613
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Genetic Phenomena Commons, Genetics and Genomics Commons, Nucleic Acids, Nucleotides, and Nucleosides Commons