Project description:Insulators are considered as chromosome organizers. BEAF, one of the insulator proteins, is highly conserved in Drosophila speies but also limited to Drosophila spcies. BEAF associates with TSS of active genes. Comparative study of BEAF binding landscapes in four Drosophila species reveals BEAF association with gene pairs, and the results suggest the role of gain or loss of BEAF binding during the speciation of Drosophila species.
Project description:Insulators are considered as chromosome organizers. BEAF, one of the insulator proteins, is highly conserved in Drosophila speies but also limited to Drosophila spcies. BEAF associates with TSS of active genes. Comparative study of BEAF binding landscapes in four Drosophila species reveals BEAF association with gene pairs, and the results suggest the role of gain or loss of BEAF binding during the speciation of Drosophila species. DNA sample from ChIP for BEAF and input are collected for each of four Drosophila species
Project description:This experiment was designed to investigate the epigenetic basis of sex chromosome dosage compensation. Such mechanisms often operate through epigenetic modifications, including histone modifications, which alter chromatin structure and gene expression. In Drosophila melanogaster, dosage compensation is achieved by upregulating the single X chromosome in males through acetylation of histone H4 at lysine 16 (H4K16ac). We therefore used D. melanogaster as a positive control to validate our approach. In contrast, the mechanism of dosage compensation in Bacillus grandii remains unknown. By profiling H4K16ac in this species, we aim to test whether this histone modification may have been convergently recruited to mediate dosage compensation.
Project description:The Drosophila male-specific lethal (MSL) complex binds to the male X chromosome to activate transcription, and consists of five proteins, MSL1, MSL2, MSL3, MOF, MLE, and two roX RNAs. The MLE helicase remodels the roX lncRNAs, enabling the lncRNA-mediated assembly of the Drosophila dosage compensation complex. MSL2 is expressed only in males and interacts with the N-terminal zinc-finger of the transcription factor CLAMP that is important for specific recruitment of the MSL complex on the male X chromosome. Here we found that the unstructured C-terminal region of MLE interacts with 6-7 zinc-finger domains of CLAMP. In vitro 4-5 zinc fingers are critical for specific DNA-binding of CLAMP with GA-repeats, which constitute the core motif at the high affinity binding sites for MSL proteins. Deletion of the Clamp Binding Domain (CBD) in MLE results in decreasing of MSL proteins association with male X chromosome and increasing of male lethality. These results suggest that interactions of unstructured regions in MSL2 and MLE with CLAMP zinc finger domains are important for the specific recruitment of the MSL complex on the male X chromosome.
Project description:Extensive sex-biased expression has been seen in multiple surveys D. melanogaster. We were interested in broadly sampling sex-biased expression of orthologs and species- or lineage-specific genes in the Drosophila genus. To appropriately assay gene expression in multiple species, we used custom microarrays designed against each of six species that broadly sample the phylogenetic space represented by the newly completed genomes (D. simulans, D. yakuba, D. ananassae, D. pseudoobscura, D. virilis and D. mojavensis) and an array designed against D. melanogaster to determine the overall patterns of sex-biased expression in those species and their chromosome linkage. Keywords: other