Transcriptional silencing of transposable elements by Piwi and its impact on chromatin and gene expression
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Drosophila melanogaster
PROVIDER: GSE41729 | GEO | 2012/11/26
SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA178497
REPOSITORIES: GEO
Similar Datasets
Project description:Eukaryotic genomes are colonized by transposable elements whose uncontrolled activity results in genomic instability. The piRNA pathway silences transposons in animal gonads, yet how this is achieved molecularly remains controversial. We assign an essential role to the HMG protein Maelstrom in the process of Piwi mediated silencing in Drosophila. Genome wide assays revealed highly correlated changes in RNA Polymerase II recruitment, nascent RNA output and steady state RNA levels of transposons upon loss of Piwi or Maelstrom. Our data demonstrate piRNA-mediated trans- silencing of hundreds of transposon copies at the transcriptional level. We show that Piwi is required for establishing heterochromatic H3K9me3 marks on transposons and their genomic surrounding. In contrast, loss of Maelstrom impacts transposon H3K9me3 patterns only marginally yet leads to increased heterochromatin spreading, suggesting that Maelstrom acts downstream of or in parallel to H3K9me3. Our work uncovers the widespread influence of transposons and the piRNA pathway on chromatin patterns and gene expression programs. RNA Polymerase II and H3K9me3 occupancy, and steady-state and nascent RNA levels in wild-type ovarian somatic cells (OSC) and RNAi knock-downs of the piRNA pathway components. RNA Polymerase II occupancy in tissue-specific knockdowns of tejas (control) and armi in somatic cells of Drosophila ovary.
2012-11-26 | E-GEOD-41729 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Silencing of transposons in the Drosophila ovary relies on three Piwi-family proteins, Piwi, Aubergine (Aub), and Ago3, acting in concert with their small RNA guides, the piRNAs. Aub and Ago3 are found in the germ cell cytoplasm, where they function in the ping-pong cycle to consume transposon mRNAs. The nuclear Piwi protein is required for transposon silencing in both germ and somatic follicle cells, yet the precise mechanisms by which Piwi acts remain largely unclear. We investigated the role of Piwi by combining cell-type specific knockdowns with measurements of steady state transposon mRNA levels, nascent RNA synthesis, and small RNA abundance. In somatic cells, Piwi loss lead to concerted effects on nascent transcripts and transposon mRNAs, indicating that Piwi acts through transcriptional gene silencing (TGS). In germ cells, Piwi loss showed disproportionate impacts on steady state RNA levels, indicating that it also exerts an effect on post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). Piwi knockdown affected levels of germ cell piRNAs presumably bound to Aub and Ago3, perhaps explaining its post-transcriptional impacts. Overall, our results indicate that Piwi plays multiple roles in the piRNA pathway, in part enforcing transposon repression through effects on transcription but also participating in germ cell piRNA biogenesis. Piwi function in transcriptional and post-transcriptional transposon silencing was probed using deep-sequencing of small RNAs, steady-state and nascent transcripts, and DNA associated with H3K9me3 chromatin mark. In all cases comparison of two samples was performed: Tj- or nos-driven knock down of piwi to respective knock down of white gene (control sample). RNA-seq dataset has two replicates.
2013-02-09 | E-GEOD-43360 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The piRNA-interacting Piwi protein is involved in transcriptional silencing of transposable elements in ovaries of D. melanogaster. Here we characterized the genome-wide effect of nuclear Piwi elimination on the presence of the heterochromatic H3K9me3 mark and HP1a, as well as on the transcription-associated mark H3K4me2. Our results demonstrate that a significant increase in the H3K4me2 level upon nuclear Piwi loss is not accompanied by the alterations in H3K9me3 and HP1a levels for several germline-expressed transposons, suggesting that in this case Piwi prevents transcription by a mechanism distinct from H3K9 methylation. We found that the targets of Piwi-dependent chromatin repression are mainly related to the elements that display a higher level of H3K4me2 modification in the absence of silencing, i.e. most actively transcribed elements. We also show that Piwi-guided silencing does not significantly influence the chromatin state of dual-strand piRNA-producing clusters. In addition, host protein-coding gene expression is essentially not affected due to the nuclear Piwi elimination, but we noted an increase in small nuclear spliceosomal RNAs abundance and propose Piwi involvement in their posttranscriptional regulation. Our work reveals new aspects of transposon silencing in Drosophila, indicating that transcription of transposons can underpin their Piwi dependent silencing, while canonical heterochromatin marks are not obligatory for their repression. Examination of histone modifications in ovaries from two different fly lines- piwiNt/piwi2 (mutant) and piwi/+ (wildtype)
2014-05-19 | E-GEOD-56347 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The piRNA-interacting Piwi protein is involved in transcriptional silencing of transposable elements in ovaries of D. melanogaster. Here we characterized the genome-wide effect of nuclear Piwi elimination on the presence of the heterochromatic H3K9me3 mark and HP1a, as well as on the transcription-associated mark H3K4me2. Our results demonstrate that a significant increase in the H3K4me2 level upon nuclear Piwi loss is not accompanied by the alterations in H3K9me3 and HP1a levels for several germline-expressed transposons, suggesting that in this case Piwi prevents transcription by a mechanism distinct from H3K9 methylation. We found that the targets of Piwi-dependent chromatin repression are mainly related to the elements that display a higher level of H3K4me2 modification in the absence of silencing, i.e. most actively transcribed elements. We also show that Piwi-guided silencing does not significantly influence the chromatin state of dual-strand piRNA-producing clusters. In addition, host protein-coding gene expression is essentially not affected due to the nuclear Piwi elimination, but we noted an increase in small nuclear spliceosomal RNAs abundance and propose Piwi involvement in their posttranscriptional regulation. Our work reveals new aspects of transposon silencing in Drosophila, indicating that transcription of transposons can underpin their Piwi dependent silencing, while canonical heterochromatin marks are not obligatory for their repression.
2014-05-19 | GSE56347 | GEO
Project description:Drosophila Piwi associates with PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) and represses transposons transcriptionally through heterochromatinization; however, this process is poorly understood. Here, we identify Brahma (Brm), the core adenosine triphosphatase of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, as a new Piwi interactor, and show Brm involvement in activating transcription of Piwi-targeted transposons before silencing. Bioinformatic analyses indicated that Piwi, once bound to target RNAs, reduced the occupancies of SWI/SNF and RNA polymerase II (Pol II) on target loci, abrogating transcription. Artificial piRNA-driven targeting of Piwi to RNA transcripts enhanced repression of Brm-dependent reporters compared with Brm-independent reporters. This was dependent on Piwi cofactors, Gtsf1/Asterix (Gtsf1), Panoramix/Silencio (Panx), and Maelstrom (Mael), but not Eggless/dSetdb (Egg)–mediated H3K9me3 deposition. The lambdaN-box B–mediated tethering of Mael to reporters repressed Brm-dependent genes in the absence of Piwi, Panx, and Gtsf1. We propose that Piwi, via Mael, can rapidly suppress transcription of Brm-dependent genes to facilitate heterochromatin formation.
2020-12-13 | GSE108329 | GEO
Project description:Silencing of transposons in the Drosophila ovary relies on three Piwi-family proteins, Piwi, Aubergine (Aub), and Ago3, acting in concert with their small RNA guides, the piRNAs. Aub and Ago3 are found in the germ cell cytoplasm, where they function in the ping-pong cycle to consume transposon mRNAs. The nuclear Piwi protein is required for transposon silencing in both germ and somatic follicle cells, yet the precise mechanisms by which Piwi acts remain largely unclear. We investigated the role of Piwi by combining cell-type specific knockdowns with measurements of steady state transposon mRNA levels, nascent RNA synthesis, and small RNA abundance. In somatic cells, Piwi loss lead to concerted effects on nascent transcripts and transposon mRNAs, indicating that Piwi acts through transcriptional gene silencing (TGS). In germ cells, Piwi loss showed disproportionate impacts on steady state RNA levels, indicating that it also exerts an effect on post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). Piwi knockdown affected levels of germ cell piRNAs presumably bound to Aub and Ago3, perhaps explaining its post-transcriptional impacts. Overall, our results indicate that Piwi plays multiple roles in the piRNA pathway, in part enforcing transposon repression through effects on transcription but also participating in germ cell piRNA biogenesis.
2013-02-09 | GSE43360 | GEO
Project description:The PIWI interacting RNA pathway is a small RNA silencing system that keeps selfish genetic elements such as transposons under control in animal gonads. Several lines of evidence indicate that nuclear PIWI family proteins guide transcriptional silencing of their targets, yet the composition of the underlying silencing complex is unknown. Here we demonstrate that the double CHHC zinc finger protein Gtsf1 is an essential factor for Piwi mediated transcriptional repression in Drosophila. Cells lacking Gtsf1 contain nuclear Piwi loaded with piRNAs, yet Piwi's silencing capacity is ablated. Gtsf1 interacts stably with a sub-population of nuclear Piwi and loss of Gtsf1 phenocopies loss of Piwi in terms of deregulation of transposons, loss of H3K9me3 marks at euchromatic transposon insertions and deregulation of genes in proximity to repressed transposons. We propose that only a small fraction of nuclear Piwi interacts productively with a target RNA, resulting in assembly of a silencing complex with Gtsf1 as one core component. impact of loss of DmGtsf1 on transcription and H3K9m3 in ovarian somatic cells (OSC)
2013-09-06 | E-GEOD-48317 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The PIWI interacting RNA pathway is a small RNA silencing system that keeps selfish genetic elements such as transposons under control in animal gonads. Several lines of evidence indicate that nuclear PIWI family proteins guide transcriptional silencing of their targets, yet the composition of the underlying silencing complex is unknown. Here we demonstrate that the double CHHC zinc finger protein Gtsf1 is an essential factor for Piwi mediated transcriptional repression in Drosophila. Cells lacking Gtsf1 contain nuclear Piwi loaded with piRNAs, yet Piwi's silencing capacity is ablated. Gtsf1 interacts stably with a sub-population of nuclear Piwi and loss of Gtsf1 phenocopies loss of Piwi in terms of deregulation of transposons, loss of H3K9me3 marks at euchromatic transposon insertions and deregulation of genes in proximity to repressed transposons. We propose that only a small fraction of nuclear Piwi interacts productively with a target RNA, resulting in assembly of a silencing complex with Gtsf1 as one core component.
2013-09-06 | GSE48317 | GEO
Project description:The piRNA pathway controls transposon expression in animal germ cells, thereby ensuring genome stability over generations. piRNAs are maternally deposited and required for proper transposon silencing in adult offspring. However, a long-standing question in the field is the precise function of maternally deposited piRNAs and its associated factors during embryogenesis. Here, we probe the spatio-temporal expression patterns of several piRNA pathway components during early stages of development. Amongst those, factors required for transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) showed ubiquitous abundance in somatic and pole cells throughout the first half of embryogenesis. We further analysed the transcriptomes of various embryo stages and correlated these with the presence of selected chromatin marks. We found that a number of transposon families show bursts of transcription during early embryonic stages. Transposons heavily targeted by maternally deposited piRNAs accumulated repressive chromatin marks following their spike in expression. Furthermore, depletion of maternally deposited Piwi protein in early embryos resulted in increased expression of transposons targeted by inherited piRNAs and was accompanied by a strong loss of repressive chromatin marks at coding sequences. Overall, our data suggests a pivotal role for the piRNA pathway in transposon defence during Drosophila embryogenesis in somatic cells.
2021-07-26 | PXD022409 | Pride
Project description:The PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) pathway is a small RNA-based immune system that controls the expression of transposons and maintains genome integrity in animal germlines1,2. In Drosophila, piRNA-guided silencing is achieved, in part, via co-transcriptional repression of transposons by Piwi. This depends on Panoramix (Panx)3,4; however, precisely how an RNA binding event silences transcription remains to be determined. Here we show that Nuclear Export Factor 2 (Nxf2) and its co-factor, Nxt1, form a complex with Panx, and are required for co-transcriptional silencing of transposons in somatic and germline cells of the ovary. Tethering of Nxf2 to either RNA or DNA results in silencing of target loci and the concomitant accumulation of repressive chromatin marks. Nxf2 and Panx proteins are mutually required for proper localization and stability. We mapped the protein domains crucial for the Nxf2/Panx complex formation and show that the amino-terminal portion of Panx is sufficient to induce transcriptional silencing. Loss of Nxf2 or Panx results in nuclear accumulation of transposon transcripts, which is for some transposons Piwi-dependent.
2019-06-20 | PXD011415 | Pride