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Tissue-Specific TAFs Counteract Polycomb to Turn on Terminal Differentiation

2005; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 310; Issue: 5749 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.1118101

1095-9203

Xin Chen, Mark Hiller, Yasemin Sancak, Margaret T. Fuller,

Genetics and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Polycomb transcriptional silencing machinery is implicated in the maintenance of precursor fates, but how this repression is reversed to allow cell differentiation is unknown. Here we show that testis-specific TAF (TBP-associated factor) homologs required for terminal differentiation of male germ cells may activate target gene expression in part by counteracting repression by Polycomb. Chromatin immunoprecipitation revealed that testis TAFs bind to target promoters, reduce Polycomb binding, and promote local accumulation of H3K4me3, a mark of Trithorax action. Testis TAFs also promoted relocalization of Polycomb Repression Complex 1 components to the nucleolus in spermatocytes, implicating subnuclear architecture in the regulation of terminal differentiation.