Piwi modulates chromatin accessibility by regulating multiple factors including histone H1 to repress transposons
Open accessAbstract
PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) mediate transcriptional and post-transcriptional silencing of transposable element (TE) in animal gonads. In Drosophila ovaries, Piwi-piRNA complexes (Piwi-piRISCs) repress TE transcription by modifying the chromatin state, such as by H3K9 trimethylation. Here, we demonstrate that Piwi physically interacts with linker histone H1. Depletion of Piwi decreases H1 density at a subset of TEs, leading to their derepression. Silencing at these loci separately requires H1 and H3K9me3 and heterochromatin protein 1a (HP1a). Loss of H1 increases target loci chromatin accessibility without affecting H3K9me3 density at these loci, while loss of HP1a does not impact H1 density. Thus, Piwi-piRISCs require both H1 and HP1a to repress TEs, and the silencing is correlated with the chromatin state rather than H3K9me3 marks. These findings suggest that Piwi-piRISCs regulate the interaction of chromatin components with target loci to maintain silencing of TEs through the modulation of chromatin accessibility.
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R1 and R2 elements exhibit an increased level of H1 linker histone.
“In addition, R1 and R2 elements exhibited an increased level of H1 linker histone (Figure 1C), which is also mainly associated with repressive chromatin in Drosophila (62,75,83).”
From Impaired function of rDNA transcription initiation machinery leads to derepression of ribosomal genes with insertions of R2 retrotransposon (2022) · cites this paper as [75]
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Regulation of chromatin structure by site-specific histone H3 methyltransferases
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Czech, B., Preall, J. B., McGinn, J., & Hannon, G. J. (2013) · Molecular Cell · doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2013.04.007 · Cited by 269 · see citing works
Silencio/CG9754 connects the Piwi-piRNA complex to the cellular heterochromatin machinery
Sienski, G., Batki, J., Senti, K.-A., Dönertas, D., Tirian, L., Meixner, K., & Brennecke, J. (2015) · Genes & Development · doi:10.1101/gad.271908.115 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
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Fefelova, E. A., Pleshakova, I. M., Mikhaleva, E. A., Pirogov, S. A., Poltorachenko, V. A., Abramov, Y. A., Romashin, D. D., Shatskikh, A. S., Blokh, R. S., Gvozdev, V. A., et al. (2022) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkab1276 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Cell line and actinomycin D treatment Ovarian somatic cells (OSC) were grown at 25◦C in Shields and Sang M3 insect medium (Sigma-Aldrich #S3652) supplemented with 10% heat inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS) (Gibco #10270106), 10% fly extract, 10 g/ml insulin (Sigma-Aldrich # I9278), 0.6 mg/ml L-glutathione (Sigma-Al…”
BackgroundMethodInfluential
- Authors
- Iwasaki, Y. W., Murano, K., Ishizu, H., Shibuya, A., Iyoda, Y., Siomi, M. C., Siomi, H., & Saito, K.
- Affiliations
- Keio University (JP)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Siomi, Haruhiko
- Saito, Kuniaki
- Venue
- Molecular Cell
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-08
- Volume
- 63
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 408-419
- ISSN
- 1097-2765 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2466356638
- Cited by
- 131
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 20.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 368 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Molecular Cell (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers
- Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Chromosomal and Genetic Variations
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
- Keywords
- Piwi, piRNA, transposable elements, transposon silencing, chromatin accessibility, histone H1, H3K9 trimethylation, HP1α, heterochromatin, Drosophila ovary, post-transcriptional gene silencing
- MeSH terms
- Chromobox Protein Homolog 5, Animals, Cells, Cultured, Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone, DNA Transposable Elements, Drosophila melanogaster, Female, Histones, Ovary, Transfection, DNA Methylation, Drosophila Proteins, RNA Interference, RNA, Small Interfering, Chromatin Assembly and Disassembly, Argonaute Proteins, Epigenetic Repression
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