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Changes in chromatin structure correlate with transcriptional activity of nucleolar rDNA in polytene chromosomes

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Abstract

Ribosomal DNA genes (rDNA) are found in tandem arrays of hundreds of repeated genes, but only a fraction of these genes are actively transcribed. The regulatory mechanism controlling the transition between active and inactive rDNA in higher eukaryotes is vital for cell survival. Here, we show that the nucleolus from Drosophila salivary gland cells contains two levels of chromatin organization reflecting differences in transcriptional activity: Decondensed chromatin is highly occupied with TATA-box-binding protein (TBP), phosphorylated H3S10, and acetylated H3K14, suggesting that rDNA in decondensed nucleolar areas is actively transcribed. Condensed chromatin lacks TBP, phosphorylated H3S10, or acetylated H3K14 and is enriched in the rDNA retrotransposons R1 and R2. The data show that R1 and R2 retrotransposons are not actively transcribed in salivary glands and may lead to the epigenetic silencing of flanking rDNA genes and that the silencing mechanisms of these sequences might be partially independent of heterochromatin formation by methylation of histone H3 at lysine 9 and binding of heterochromatin protein 1.

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Acknowledgments

We thank James T. Kadonaga, Thomas Jenuwein, Anne Dejean and Jacob-S. Seeler for kindly providing antibodies used in this work. We also thank Heather Wallace for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported by US Public Health Service Award GM78132-2 from the NIH and 0616081 from NSF.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology, M407 Walters Life Sciences, The University of Tennessee, 1414 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Maria Piedad Plata, Hyuck Joon Kang, Shaofei Zhang, Srilalitha Kuruganti, Shih-Jui Hsu & Mariano Labrador

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  1. Maria Piedad Plata
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  2. Hyuck Joon Kang
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  3. Shaofei Zhang
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Correspondence to Mariano Labrador.

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Communicated by I. Grummt

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Plata, M.P., Kang, H.J., Zhang, S. et al. Changes in chromatin structure correlate with transcriptional activity of nucleolar rDNA in polytene chromosomes. Chromosoma 118, 303–322 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-008-0198-9

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