Repression of meiotic genes by antisense transcription and by Fkh2 transcription factor in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

ABSTRACT: In S. pombe, about 5% of genes are meiosis-specific and accumulate little or no mRNA during vegetative growth. Here we use Affymetrix tiling arrays to characterize transcripts in vegetative and meiotic cells. In vegetative cells, many meiotic genes, especially those induced in mid-meiosis, have abundant antisense transcripts. These results suggest that antisense transcription represses sense transcription of meiotic genes in vegetative cells. Although the mechanism(s) of antisense mediated transcription repression need to be further explored, our data indicates that RNAi machinery, such as Rdp1, is not required for repression. Previously, we and others used non-strand specific methods to study splicing regulation of meiotic genes and concluded that 28 mid-meiotic genes are spliced only in meiosis. We now demonstrate that the “unspliced” signal in vegetative cells comes from the antisense RNA, not from unspliced sense RNA, andwe argue against the idea that splicing regulates these mid-meiotic genes. Most of these mid-meiotic genes are induced in mid-meiosis by the forkhead transcription factor Mei4. Interestingly, deletion of a different forkhead transcription factor, Fkh2, allows low levels of sense expression of some mid-meiotic genes in vegetative cells. We propose that expression of mid-meiotic genes is kept tightly off in vegetative cells by two independent ways: antisense transcription and Fkh2 repression.

ORGANISM(S): Schizosaccharomyces pombe

SUBMITTER: Janet Leatherwood 

PROVIDER: E-MEXP-3414 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress