Project description:Drosophila heterochromatin protein 1- HP11 is believed to be involved in active transcription, transcriptional gene silencing, and the formation of heterochromatin2-7. However, little is known about the function of HP1 during development. Using a Gal4-induced RNA interference system, we show that conditional depletion of HP1 in transgenic flies results in preferential lethality in male flies. Cytological analysis of mitotic chromosomes reveals that HP1 depletion causes sex-biased chromosomal defects, including telomere fusions. The global levels of specific histone modifications, particularly the hallmarks of active chromatin, are preferentially increased in males as well. Expression analysis revealed that approximately twice as many genes are specifically regulated by HP1 in males compared to females. Furthermore, HP1-regulated genes showed greater enrichment for HP1 binding in males. Taken together, these results reveal that HP1 modulates chromosomal integrity, histone modifications, and transcription in a sex-specific manner. Keywords: sex-specific, HP1, gender comparison
Project description:Drosophila X chromosomes are subject to dosage compensation in males and are known to have a specialized chromatin structure in the male soma. We are interested in how specific chromatin structure change contributes to X chromosome hyperactivity and dosage compensation. We have conducted a global analysis of localize two dosage compensation complex dependent histone marks H4AcK16 and H3PS10 and one dosage compensation complex independent histone mark H3diMeK4 in the genome, especially on X chromosome by ChIP-chip approach in both male and female adult flies. We also probed general genomewide chromatin structure by deep DNA sequencing of sheared ChIP input DNA from male and female adult flies. Chromatin immunoprecipitations were performed in 5-7 day aged adult male and female flies with three histone modification antibodies. ChIP enriched DNA and input DNA was labeled by Cy3 or Cy5 dye separately and hybridized simultaneously to the Drosophila FlyGEM arrays. At least two biological replicates were performed for each antibody and sex. DNA-seq (NIDDK-Drosophila-Illumina-DNASeq) were performed on ChIP-input sheared DNA to check the general chromatin structure of different chromosome.
