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Nucleosome remodeling and covalent modifications of histones play fundamental roles in chromatin structure and function. However, much remains to be learned about how the action of ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling factors and histone-modifying enzymes is coordinated to modulate chromatin organization and transcription. The evolutionarily conserved ATP-dependent chromatin-remodeling factor ISWI plays essential roles in chromosome organization, DNA replication, and transcription regulation. To gain insight into regulation and mechanism of action of ISWI, we conducted an unbiased genetic screen to identify factors with which it interacts in vivo. We found that ISWI interacts with a network of factors that escaped detection in previous biochemical analyses, including the Sin3A gene. The Sin3A protein and the histone deacetylase Rpd3 are part of a conserved histone deacetylase complex involved in transcriptional repression. ISWI and the Sin3A/Rpd3 complex co-localize at specific chromosome domains. Loss of ISWI activity causes a reduction in the binding of the Sin3A/Rpd3 complex to chromatin. Biochemical analysis showed that the ISWI physically interacts with the histone deacetylase activity of the Sin3A/Rpd3 complex. Consistent with these findings, the acetylation of histone H4 is altered when ISWI activity is perturbed in vivo. These findings suggest that ISWI associates with the Sin3A/Rpd3 complex to support its function in vivo., Author Summary The eukaryotic genome is organized in a highly dynamic structure called chromatin. Access to DNA in the context of chromatin is granted by enzymatic activities that use the energy of hydrolysis of ATP to slide or covalently modify nucleosomes. ISWI is an evolutionarily conserved nucleosome-sliding factor that plays essential roles in transcription, DNA replication, and chromosome organization. Despite the wealth of data on ISWI function, little is known about how its activity is regulated and integrated in different physiological contexts in vivo. Using D. melanogaster as a model system, we conducted a genetic screen for factors regulating ISWI activity. One of the genes identified in our screen, Sin3A, encodes a subunit of a histone deacetylase complex that may regulate ISWI function by modifying its nucleosome substrate. Our genetic screen revealed that ISWI interacts with a network of cellular and nuclear factors that escaped previous biochemical analyses, indicating the participation of ISWI in a variety of biological processes not linked to date with known ISWI functions.

The developing Drosophila eye-antennal disc is a particularly suited system for the genetic and cellular studies of complex biological processes. Methods to analyze Drosophila eye discs by flow cytometry are mainly based on the dissociation of tissues with trypsin. Dissociation operated by trypsin is very effective, though it causes a lot of stress to live cells often compromising the use of treated cells for further analyses. Here, we report a method to produce dissociated eye-disc cells that retain cell-membrane markers and that can be used for flow cytometry and cytological analysis of mitotic chromosomes. The method described is a great complementing tool for the cellular characterization of phenotypes resulting from classic clonal and miss-expression approaches in the Drosophila eye. DISTRIBUTE. © 2007 Landes Bioscience.

ISWI is an evolutionarily conserved ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling factor playing central roles in DNA replication, RNA transcription, and chromosome organization. The variety of biological functions dependent on ISWI suggests that its activity could be highly regulated. Our group has previously isolated and characterized new cellular activities that positively regulate ISWI in Drosophila melanogaster. To identify factors that antagonize ISWI activity we developed a novel in vivo eye-based assay to screen for genetic suppressors of ISWI. Our screen revealed that ISWI interacts with an evolutionarily conserved network of cellular and nuclear factors that escaped previous genetic and biochemical analyses.

ATP-dependent nucleosome-remodeling enzymes and covalent modifiers of chromatin set the functional state of chromatin. However, how these enzymatic activities are coordinated in the nucleus is largely unknown. We found that the evolutionary conserved nucleosome-remodeling ATPase ISWI and the poly-ADP-ribose polymerase PARP genetically interact. We present evidence showing that ISWI is target of poly-ADP-ribosylation. Poly-ADP-ribosylation counteracts ISWI function in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests that ISWI is a physiological target of PARP and that poly-ADP-ribosylation can be a new, important post-translational modification regulating the activity of ATP-dependent nucleosome remodelers., Author Summary The ISWI protein is a highly conserved nucleosome remodeler that plays essential roles in regulating chromosome structure, DNA replication, and gene expression. The variety of functions associated with ISWI activity are probably connected to the ability of other cellular factors to regulate its ATP-dependent nucleosome-remodeling activity. We identified one factor—the poly-ADP-ribose polymerase, PARP—that can counteract ISWI function. PARP is an abundant nuclear protein that catalyzes the transfer of ADP-ribose units to specific proteins involved in DNA repair, transcription, and chromatin structure. Our work suggests that the activity of an ATP-dependent remodeler can be modulated by poly-ADP-ribosylation in order to regulate chromatin function in vivo., Enzymes that mediate nucleosome remodeling and poly-ADP-ribosylation play essential roles in the eukaryotic cell. A new study suggests a mechanism to explain how two nuclear enzymes can coordinate their activities to regulate chromatin structure and function.

The positioning of nucleosomes along chromatin has been implicated in the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotic cells, because packaging DNA into nucleosomes affects sequence accessibility. In this paper we propose a new model (called MLM) for the identification of nucleosomes and linker regions across DNA, consisting in a thresholding technique based on cut-set conditions. For this purpose we have defined a method to generate synthetic microarray data fully inspired from the approach that has been used by Yuan et al. Results have shown a good recognition rate on synthetic data, moreover, the $MLM$ shows a good agreement with the recently published method based on Hidden Markov Model when tested on Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosomes microarray data.