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Repetitive DNA promotes RNAi-mediated heterochromatin formation via an anti-silencing factor in fission yeast

Takahiro Asanuma, View ORCID ProfileSoichi Inagaki, View ORCID ProfileTetsuji Kakutani, View ORCID ProfileHiroyuki Aburatani, Yota Murakami
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.04.498379
Takahiro Asanuma
1Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University; Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan
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Soichi Inagaki
2Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo; Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan
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Tetsuji Kakutani
2Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo; Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan
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Hiroyuki Aburatani
3Genome Science Division, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo; Tokyo, 153-8904, Japan
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Yota Murakami
1Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University; Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan
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  • For correspondence: yota@sci.hokudai.ac.jp
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Introductory paragraph

In most eukaryotes, constitutive heterochromatin defined by H3K9me2/me3 is enriched on repetitive DNA, such as the satellite repeats of pericentromeres1. Furthermore, repetitive transgenes often cause the formation of silent heterochromatin in diverse model organisms2. Although these facts suggest that the repetition itself promotes heterochromatin formation, the mechanism by which this occurs is still unclear3–7. Here, using Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we show that tandemly repeated reporter genes promote RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated heterochromatin formation in cooperation with an anti-silencing factor. The repeated gene itself does not cause heterochromatin formation; however, once the RNAi recognizes it via artificial small RNAs, the repeated gene starts producing cognate small RNAs to autonomously maintain heterochromatin. This depends on the number of repeats and an anti-silencing factor Epe1, which removes H3K9me and derepresses transcription of genes underlying heterochromatin. Our results suggest that an anti-silencing factor generates sufficient transcripts for the activation of RNAi when repetitive DNA underlies silent heterochromatin.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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  • https://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 04, 2022.
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Repetitive DNA promotes RNAi-mediated heterochromatin formation via an anti-silencing factor in fission yeast
Takahiro Asanuma, Soichi Inagaki, Tetsuji Kakutani, Hiroyuki Aburatani, Yota Murakami
bioRxiv 2022.07.04.498379; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.04.498379
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Repetitive DNA promotes RNAi-mediated heterochromatin formation via an anti-silencing factor in fission yeast
Takahiro Asanuma, Soichi Inagaki, Tetsuji Kakutani, Hiroyuki Aburatani, Yota Murakami
bioRxiv 2022.07.04.498379; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.04.498379

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