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Molecular and Cellular Biology, September 2002, p. 6261-6271, Vol. 22, No. 17
0270-7306/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/MCB.22.17.6261-6271.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

pipsqueak Encodes a Factor Essential for Sequence-Specific Targeting of a Polycomb Group Protein Complex

Der-Hwa Huang,* Yuh-Long Chang, Chih-Chao Yang, I-Ching Pan,,{dagger} and Balas King

Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 115, Republic of China

Received 11 February 2002/ Returned for modification 25 March 2002/ Accepted 6 June 2002

The Polycomb (Pc) group (Pc-G) of repressors is essential for transcriptional silencing of homeotic genes that determine the axial development of metazoan animals. It is generally believed that the multimeric complexes formed by these proteins nucleate certain chromatin structures to silence promoter activity upon binding to Pc-G response elements (PRE). Little is known, however, about the molecular mechanism involved in sequence-specific binding of these complexes. Here, we show that an immunoaffinity-purified Pc protein complex contains a DNA binding activity specific to the (GA)n motif in a PRE from the bithoraxoid region. We found that this activity can be attributed primarily to the large protein isoform encoded by pipsqueak (psq) instead of to the well-characterized GAGA factor. The functional relevance of psq to the silencing mechanism is strongly supported by its synergistic interactions with a subset of Pc-G that cause misexpression of homeotic genes.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: N-420, Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 115, Republic of China. Phone: (886) 2-2789-9219. Fax: (886) 2-2782-6085. E-mail: mbdhuang{at}ccvax.sinica.edu.tw.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Genetics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, September 2002, p. 6261-6271, Vol. 22, No. 17
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/MCB.22.17.6261-6271.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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