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XB-ART-13018
Mol Cell Biol 1999 Jun 01;196:3958-68. doi: 10.1128/MCB.19.6.3958.
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Transcriptional repression by XPc1, a new Polycomb homolog in Xenopus laevis embryos, is independent of histone deacetylase.

Strouboulis J , Damjanovski S , Vermaak D , Meric F , Wolffe AP .


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The Polycomb group (Pc-G) genes encode proteins that assemble into complexes implicated in the epigenetic maintenance of heritable patterns of expression of developmental genes, a function largely conserved from Drosophila to mammals and plants. The Pc-G is thought to act at the chromatin level to silence expression of target genes; however, little is known about the molecular basis of this repression. In keeping with the evidence that Pc-G homologs in higher vertebrates exist in related pairs, we report here the isolation of XPc1, a second Polycomb homolog in Xenopus laevis. We show that XPc1 message is maternally deposited in a translationally masked form in Xenopus oocytes, with XPc1 protein first appearing in embryonic nuclei shortly after the blastula stage. XPc1 acts as a transcriptional repressor in vivo when tethered to a promoter in Xenopus embryos. We find that XPc1-mediated repression can be only partially alleviated by an increase in transcription factor dosage and that inhibition of deacetylase activity by trichostatin A treatment has no effect on XPc1 repression, suggesting that histone deacetylation does not form the basis for Pc-G-mediated repression in our assay.

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Species referenced: Xenopus laevis
Genes referenced: pc

References [+] :
Alkema, MPc2, a new murine homolog of the Drosophila polycomb protein is a member of the mouse polycomb transcriptional repressor complex. 1997, Pubmed