Polycomb mediates Myc autorepression and its transcriptional control of many loci in Drosophila.
Publication Year
2005
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Aberrant accumulation of the Myc oncoprotein propels proliferation and induces carcinogenesis. In normal cells, however, an abundance of Myc protein represses transcription at the c-myc locus. Cancer cells often lose this autorepression. We examined the control of myc in Drosophila and show here that the Drosophila ortholog, dmyc, also undergoes autorepression. We find that the developmental repressor Polycomb (Pc) is required for dmyc autorepression, and that this Pc-dMyc-mediated repression spreads across an 875-kb region encompassing the dmyc gene. To further investigate the relationship between Myc and Polycomb, we used microarrays to identify genes regulated by each, and identify a striking relationship between the two: A large set of dMyc activation targets is normally repressed by Pc, and 73% of dMyc repression targets require Pc for this repression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation confirmed that many dMyc-Pc-repressed loci have an epigenetic mark recognized by Pc. Our results suggest a novel relationship between Myc and Polycomb, wherein Myc enhances Polycomb repression in order to repress targets, and Myc suppresses Polycomb repression in order to activate targets.
Keywords
Animals,
Drosophila,
Gene Expression Profiling,
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis,
Transcription Factors,
Chromatin Immunoprecipitation,
Down-Regulation,
DNA-Binding Proteins,
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental,
Chromatin,
Quantitative Trait Loci,
Drosophila Proteins,
Polycomb Repressive Complex 1
Journal
Genes Dev
Volume
19
Issue
24
Pages
2941-6
Date Published
12/2005
ISSN Number
0890-9369
Alternate Journal
Genes Dev.
PMID
16357214