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Molecular and Cellular Biology, December 1999, p. 8451-8460, Vol. 19, No. 12
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The Drosophila Polycomb Protein Interacts with Nucleosomal Core Particles In Vitro via Its Repression Domain

Achim Breiling,1,dagger Edgar Bonte,2,Dagger Simona Ferrari,2 Peter B. Becker,2,§ and Renato Paro1,*

ZMBH, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg,1 and EMBL, 69117 Heidelberg,2 Germany

Received 1 June 1999/Returned for modification 6 July 1999/Accepted 7 September 1999

The proteins of the Polycomb group (PcG) are required for maintaining regulator genes, such as the homeotic selectors, stably and heritably repressed in appropriate developmental domains. It has been suggested that PcG proteins silence genes by creating higher-order chromatin structures at their chromosomal targets, thus preventing the interaction of components of the transcriptional machinery with their cis-regulatory elements. An unresolved issue is how higher order-structures are anchored at the chromatin base, the nucleosomal fiber. Here we show a direct biochemical interaction of a PcG protein---the Polycomb (PC) protein---with nucleosomal core particles in vitro. The main nucleosome-binding domain coincides with a region in the C-terminal part of PC previously identified as the repression domain. Our results suggest that PC, by binding to the core particle, recruits other PcG proteins to chromatin. This interaction could provide a key step in the establishment or regulation of higher-order chromatin structures.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: ZMBH, Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany. Phone: 49-6221-54-68 78. Fax: 49-6221-54 58 93. E-mail: paro{at}sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de.

dagger Present address: Hospitale San Raffaele, DIBIT, 20132 Milan, Italy.

Dagger Present address: Department of Cell Biology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

§ Present address: Adolf-Butenandt-Institut, Molekularbiologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80336 Munich, Germany.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, December 1999, p. 8451-8460, Vol. 19, No. 12
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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