Back

A SUMO-dependent regulatory switch connects the piRNA pathway to the heterochromatin machinery in Drosophila

Andreev, V. I.; Yu, C.; Wang, J.; Schnabl, J.; Tirian, L.; Gehre, M.; Handler, D.; Duchek, P.; Novatchkova, M.; Baumgartner, L.; Meixner, K.; Sienski, G.; Patel, D. J.; Brennecke, J.

2021-07-27 molecular biology
10.1101/2021.07.27.453956 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Nuclear Argonaute proteins, guided by small RNAs, mediate sequence-specific heterochromatin formation. The molecular principles that link Argonaute-small RNA complexes to cellular heterochromatin effectors upon binding to nascent target RNAs are poorly understood. Here, we elucidate the mechanism by which the PIWI interacting RNA (piRNA) pathway connects to the heterochromatin machinery in Drosophila. Piwi-mediated stabilization of the corepressor complex SFiNX on chromatin leads to SUMOylation of its subunit Panoramix. SUMOylation, together with an amphipathic LxxLL motif in Panoramixs intrinsically disordered repressor domain, are necessary and sufficient to recruit small ovary (Sov), a multi-zinc finger protein essential for general heterochromatin formation and viability. Structure-guided mutations that abrogate the Panoramix-Sov interaction or that prevent SUMOylation of Panoramix uncouple Sov from the piRNA pathway, resulting in viable but sterile flies in which Piwi-targeted transposons are derepressed. Thus, by coupling recruitment of a corepressor to nascent transcripts with its SUMOylation, Piwi engages the heterochromatin machinery specifically at transposon loci.

Matching journals

The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.