RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Regulation of Heterochromatic Silencing and Histone H3 Lysine-9 Methylation by RNAi
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 1833
OP 1837
DO 10.1126/science.1074973
VO 297
IS 5588
A1 Volpe, Thomas A.
A1 Kidner, Catherine
A1 Hall, Ira M.
A1 Teng, Grace
A1 Grewal, Shiv I. S.
A1 Martienssen, Robert A.
YR 2002
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/297/5588/1833.abstract
AB Eukaryotic heterochromatin is characterized by a high density of repeats and transposons, as well as by modified histones, and influences both gene expression and chromosome segregation. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we deleted the argonaute, dicer, and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene homologs, which encode part of the machinery responsible for RNA interference (RNAi). Deletion results in the aberrant accumulation of complementary transcripts from centromeric heterochromatic repeats. This is accompanied by transcriptional de-repression of transgenes integrated at the centromere, loss of histone H3 lysine-9 methylation, and impairment of centromere function. We propose that double-stranded RNA arising from centromeric repeats targets formation and maintenance of heterochromatin through RNAi.