Dataset Information

Piwi induces piRNA-guided transcriptional silencing and establishment of a repressive chromatin state

ABSTRACT: In the Metazoan germline, piwi proteins and associated piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) provide a defense system against the expression of transposable elements. In the cytoplasm, piRNA sequences guide piwi complexes to destroy complementary transposon transcripts by endonucleolytic cleavage. However, some piwi family members are nuclear, raising the possibility of alternative pathways for piRNA-mediated regulation of gene expression. We found that Drosophila Piwi is recruited to chromatin, co-localizing with RNA polymerase II on polytene chromosomes. Knockdown of Piwi in the germline increases expression of transposable elements that are targeted by piRNAs, whereas protein-coding genes remain largely unaffected. De-repression of transposons upon Piwi depletion correlates with increased occupancy of RNA polymerase II on their promoters. Expression of piRNAs that target a reporter construct results in a decrease in Pol II occupancy and an increase in repressive H3K9me3 marks and HP1 on the reporter locus. Our results indicate that Piwi identifies targets complementary to the associated piRNA and induces transcriptional repression by establishing a repressive chromatin state when correct targets are found.

ORGANISM(S): Drosophila melanogaster

PROVIDER: GSE43829 | GEO | 2013/02/11

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA187504

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Dataset's files

Source:

			Action	DRS
		Other

Items per page:

1 - 1 of 1

Similar Datasets

Project description:PIWI-clade Argonaute proteins silence transposon expression in animal gonads. Their target specificity is defined by bound ~23-30nt piRNAs that are processed from single-stranded precursor transcripts via two distinct pathways. Primary piRNAs are defined by the endo-nuclease Zucchini, while biogenesis of secondary piRNAs depends on piRNA-guided transcript cleavage and results in piRNA amplification. Here, we analyze the inter-dependencies between these piRNA biogenesis pathways in the developing Drosophila ovary. We show that secondary piRNA-guided target slicing is the predominant mechanism that specifies transcripts—including those from piRNA clusters—as primary piRNA precursors and that defines the spectrum of Piwi-bound piRNAs in germline cells. Post-transcriptional silencing in the cytoplasm therefore enforces nuclear, transcriptional target silencing, which ensures the tight suppression of transposons during oogenesis. As target slicing also defines the nuclear piRNA pool during mouse spermatogenesis, our findings uncover an unexpected conceptual similarity between the mouse and fly piRNA pathways. To understand the hierarchical order of primary versus secondary piRNA biogenesis in Drosophila ovaries, we sequenced piRNAs bound to total-Piwi, germline-Piwi, Aubergine and Argonaute3 from ovaries of germline specific knockdowns of control, piwi, aub, ago3 single knockdowns and aub/ago3 double knockdowns. To determine changes in Transposable Element (TE) transcription or TE RNA steady state in perturbed piRNA pathway conditions, we performed Pol2-ChIP-sequencing and polyA bound RNA-sequencing from ovaries of multiple germline knockdown genotypes. We also sequenced genomic DNA from ovaries of control knockdowns to experimentally estimate the TE copy number in our genetic background. Finally, we used CAP-seq from germline specific Piwi depletions to identify the Transcriptional Start Sites (TSS) in TEs in a deregulated background. Replicates are labeled with R1, R2, R3, R4 where indicated.

Dataset Information

Piwi induces piRNA-guided transcriptional silencing and establishment of a repressive chromatin state

Dataset's files

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets