The DREAM complex promotes gene body H2A.Z for target repression

  1. Julie Ahringer1
  1. 1The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QN, United Kingdom;
  2. 2Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA;
  3. 3EMBL-CRG Systems Biology Unit, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona 08003, Spain
  1. Corresponding author: j.ahringer{at}gurdon.cam.ac.uk
  1. 4 These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

The DREAM (DP, Retinoblastoma [Rb]-like, E2F, and MuvB) complex controls cellular quiescence by repressing cell cycle genes, but its mechanism of action is poorly understood. Here we show that Caenorhabditis elegans DREAM targets have an unusual pattern of high gene body HTZ-1/H2A.Z. In mutants of lin-35, the sole p130/Rb-like gene in C. elegans, DREAM targets have reduced gene body HTZ-1/H2A.Z and increased expression. Consistent with a repressive role for gene body H2A.Z, many DREAM targets are up-regulated in htz-1/H2A.Z mutants. Our results indicate that the DREAM complex facilitates high gene body HTZ-1/H2A.Z, which plays a role in target gene repression.

Keywords

Footnotes

  • Received November 11, 2014.
  • Accepted January 23, 2015.

This article, published in Genes & Development, is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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