Previous Article | Next Article 
Molecular and Cellular Biology, January 2005, p. 590-601, Vol. 25, No. 2
0270-7306/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/MCB.25.2.590-601.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Global Effects on Gene Expression in Fission Yeast by Silencing and RNA Interference Machineries
Klavs R. Hansen,1
Gavin Burns,2
Juan Mata,2
Thomas A. Volpe,3
Robert A. Martienssen,3
Jürg Bähler,2 and
Geneviève Thon1*
Department of Genetics, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark,1
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom,2
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York3
Received 27 April 2004/
Returned for modification 28 June 2004/
Accepted 13 September 2004
Histone modifications influence gene expression in complex ways. The RNA interference (RNAi) machinery can repress transcription by recruiting histone-modifying enzymes to chromatin, although it is not clear whether this is a general mechanism for gene silencing or whether it requires repeated sequences such as long terminal repeats (LTRs). We analyzed the global effects of the Clr3 and Clr6 histone deacetylases, the Clr4 methyltransferase, the zinc finger protein Clr1, and the RNAi proteins Dicer, RdRP, and Argonaute on the transcriptome of Schizosaccharomyces pombe (fission yeast). The clr mutants derepressed similar subsets of genes, many of which also became transcriptionally activated in cells that were exposed to environmental stresses such as nitrogen starvation. Many genes that were repressed by the Clr proteins clustered in extended regions close to the telomeres. Surprisingly few genes were repressed by both the silencing and RNAi machineries, with transcripts from centromeric repeats and Tf2 retrotransposons being notable exceptions. We found no correlation between repression by RNAi and proximity to LTRs, and the wtf family of repeated sequences seems to be repressed by histone deacetylation independent of RNAi. Our data indicate that the RNAi and Clr proteins show only a limited functional overlap and that the Clr proteins play more global roles in gene silencing.
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Genetics, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 2A, Copenhagen 1353 K, Denmark. Phone: 45-3532-2108. Fax: 45-3532-2113. E-mail:
gen{at}biobase.dk.
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.
Molecular and Cellular Biology, January 2005, p. 590-601, Vol. 25, No. 2
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/MCB.25.2.590-601.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Anderson, H. E., Wardle, J., Korkut, S. V., Murton, H. E., Lopez-Maury, L., Bahler, J., Whitehall, S. K.
(2009). The Fission Yeast HIRA Histone Chaperone Is Required for Promoter Silencing and the Suppression of Cryptic Antisense Transcripts. Mol. Cell. Biol.
29: 5158-5167
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Schonbrun, M., Laor, D., Lopez-Maury, L., Bahler, J., Kupiec, M., Weisman, R.
(2009). TOR Complex 2 Controls Gene Silencing, Telomere Length Maintenance, and Survival under DNA-Damaging Conditions. Mol. Cell. Biol.
29: 4584-4594
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Fischer, T., Cui, B., Dhakshnamoorthy, J., Zhou, M., Rubin, C., Zofall, M., Veenstra, T. D., Grewal, S. I. S.
(2009). Diverse roles of HP1 proteins in heterochromatin assembly and functions in fission yeast. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
106: 8998-9003
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Roguev, A., Bandyopadhyay, S., Zofall, M., Zhang, K., Fischer, T., Collins, S. R., Qu, H., Shales, M., Park, H.-O., Hayles, J., Hoe, K.-L., Kim, D.-U., Ideker, T., Grewal, S. I., Weissman, J. S., Krogan, N. J.
(2008). Conservation and Rewiring of Functional Modules Revealed by an Epistasis Map in Fission Yeast. Science
322: 405-410
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Ishii, K., Ogiyama, Y., Chikashige, Y., Soejima, S., Masuda, F., Kakuma, T., Hiraoka, Y., Takahashi, K.
(2008). Heterochromatin Integrity Affects Chromosome Reorganization After Centromere Dysfunction. Science
321: 1088-1091
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Wang, S.-W., Stevenson, A. L., Kearsey, S. E., Watt, S., Bahler, J.
(2008). Global Role for Polyadenylation-Assisted Nuclear RNA Degradation in Posttranscriptional Gene Silencing. Mol. Cell. Biol.
28: 656-665
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Shwab, E. K., Bok, J. W., Tribus, M., Galehr, J., Graessle, S., Keller, N. P.
(2007). Histone Deacetylase Activity Regulates Chemical Diversity in Aspergillus. Eukaryot Cell
6: 1656-1664
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Welker, N. C., Habig, J. W., Bass, B. L.
(2007). Genes misregulated in C. elegans deficient in Dicer, RDE-4, or RDE-1 are enriched for innate immunity genes. RNA
13: 1090-1102
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Shimanuki, M., Chung, S.-Y., Chikashige, Y., Kawasaki, Y., Uehara, L., Tsutsumi, C., Hatanaka, M., Hiraoka, Y., Nagao, K., Yanagida, M.
(2007). Two-step, extensive alterations in the transcriptome from G0 arrest to cell division in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. GENES CELLS
12: 677-692
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Clark, S. J.
(2007). Action at a distance: epigenetic silencing of large chromosomal regions in carcinogenesis. Hum Mol Genet
16: R88-R95
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Isaac, S., Walfridsson, J., Zohar, T., Lazar, D., Kahan, T., Ekwall, K., Cohen, A.
(2007). Interaction of Epe1 With the Heterochromatin Assembly Pathway in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Genetics
175: 1549-1560
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Tanny, J. C., Erdjument-Bromage, H., Tempst, P., Allis, C. D.
(2007). Ubiquitylation of histone H2B controls RNA polymerase II transcription elongation independently of histone H3 methylation. Genes Dev.
21: 835-847
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Stoica, C., Carmichael, J. B., Parker, H., Pare, J., Hobman, T. C.
(2006). Interactions between the RNA Interference Effector Protein Ago1 and 14-3-3 Proteins: CONSEQUENCES FOR CELL CYCLE PROGRESSION. J. Biol. Chem.
281: 37646-37651
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Greenall, A., Williams, E. S., Martin, K. A., Palmer, J. M., Gray, J., Liu, C., Whitehall, S. K.
(2006). Hip3 Interacts with the HIRA Proteins Hip1 and Slm9 and Is Required for Transcriptional Silencing and Accurate Chromosome Segregation. J. Biol. Chem.
281: 8732-8739
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Hansen, K. R., Ibarra, P. T., Thon, G.
(2006). Evolutionary-conserved telomere-linked helicase genes of fission yeast are repressed by silencing factors, RNAi components and the telomere-binding protein Taz1. Nucleic Acids Res
34: 78-88
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Thon, G., Hansen, K. R., Altes, S. P., Sidhu, D., Singh, G., Verhein-Hansen, J., Bonaduce, M. J., Klar, A. J. S.
(2005). The Clr7 and Clr8 Directionality Factors and the Pcu4 Cullin Mediate Heterochromatin Formation in the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Genetics
171: 1583-1595
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
MARTIENSSEN, R., LIPPMAN, Z., MAY, B., RONEMUS, M., VAUGHN, M.
(2004). Transposons, Tandem Repeats, and the Silencing of Imprinted Genes. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol
69: 371-380
[Abstract]