Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
Argonaute Slicing Is Required for Heterochromatic Silencing and Spreading
Danielle V. Irvine,1*Mikel Zaratiegui,1*Niraj H. Tolia,1*Derek B. Goto,1Daniel H. Chitwood,1,2Matthew W. Vaughn,1Leemor Joshua-Tor,1,2Robert A. Martienssen1,2
Small interfering RNA (siRNA) guides dimethylation of histoneH3 lysine-9 (H3K9me2) via the Argonaute and RNA-dependent RNApolymerase complexes, as well as base-pairing with either RNAor DNA. We show that Argonaute requires the conserved aspartate-aspartate-histidinemotif for heterochromatic silencing and for ribonuclease H–likecleavage (slicing) of target messages complementary to siRNA.In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, heterochromaticrepeats are transcribed by polymerase II. We show that H3K9me2spreads into silent reporter genes when they are embedded withinthese transcripts and that spreading requires read-through transcription,as well as slicing by Argonaute. Thus, siRNA guides histonemodification by basepairing interactions with RNA.
1 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA. 2 Watson School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Present address: Laboratory for Nanosystems Physiology, ResearchInstitute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo,060-0812, Japan.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: martiens{at}cshl.edu
Domains of Heterochromatin Protein 1 Required for Drosophila melanogaster Heterochromatin Spreading.
K. A. Hines, D. E. Cryderman, K. M. Flannery, H. Yang, M. W. Vitalini, T. Hazelrigg, C. A. Mizzen, and L. L. Wallrath (2009)
Genetics
182, 967-977
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Epigenetic Inheritance and Reprogramming in Plants and Fission Yeast.
R.A. Martienssen, A. Kloc, R.K. Slotkin, and M. Tanurdzic (2009)
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol
|Abstract »|PDF »
Regulation of the catalytic function of topoisomerase II alpha through association with RNA.
S.-W. Park, A. M. Parrott, D. T. Fritz, Y. Park, M. B. Mathews, and C.-G. Lee (2008)
Nucleic Acids Res.
36, 6080-6090
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Chp1-Tas3 Interaction Is Required To Recruit RITS to Fission Yeast Centromeres and for Maintenance of Centromeric Heterochromatin.
J. L. DeBeauchamp, A. Moses, V. J. P. Noffsinger, D. L. Ulrich, G. Job, A. M. Kosinski, and J. F. Partridge (2008)
Mol. Cell. Biol.
28, 2154-2166
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
The growing catalog of small RNAs and their association with distinct Argonaute/Piwi family members.
T. A. Farazi, S. A. Juranek, and T. Tuschl (2008)
Development
135, 1201-1214
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Repeat-associated siRNAs cause chromatin silencing of retrotransposons in the Drosophila melanogaster germline.
M. S. Klenov, S. A. Lavrov, A. D. Stolyarenko, S. S. Ryazansky, A. A. Aravin, T. Tuschl, and V. A. Gvozdev (2007)
Nucleic Acids Res.
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Promoter-associated RNA is required for RNA-directed transcriptional gene silencing in human cells.
Present address: Laboratory for Nanosystems Physiology, Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0812, Japan. 
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: 
