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First published online December 12, 2006
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/dev.02698

Development 134, 157-165 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
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Histone methylation is required for oogenesis in Drosophila

Emily Clough, Woongjoon Moon*, Shengxian Wang, Kathleen Smith and Tulle Hazelrigg{dagger}

Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.

{dagger} Author for correspondence (e-mail: tih1{at}columbia.edu)

Accepted 16 October 2006

SET domain proteins are histone lysine methyltransferases (HMTs) that play essential roles in development. Here we show for the first time that histone methylation occurs in both the germ cells and somatic cells of the Drosophila ovary, and demonstrate in vivo that an HMT, the product of the eggless (egg) gene, is required for oogenesis. Egg is a SET domain protein that is similar to the human protein SETDB1 and its mouse ortholog ESET. These proteins are members of a small family of HMTs that contain bifurcated SET domains. Because depletion of SETDB1 in tissue culture cells is cell-lethal, and an ESET mutation causes very early periimplantation embryonic arrest, the role of SETDB1/ESET in development has proven difficult to address. We show that egg is required in the Drosophila ovary for trimethylation of histone H3 at its K9 residue. In females bearing an egg allele that deletes the SET domain, oogenesis arrests at early stages. This arrest is accompanied by reduced proliferation of somatic cells required for egg chamber formation, and by apoptosis in both germ and somatic cell populations. We propose that other closely related SET domain proteins may function similarly in gametogenesis in other species.

Key words: Histone, Methylation, Oogenesis, Drosophila




This article has been cited by other articles:


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T.-Y. Tzeng, C.-H. Lee, L.-W. Chan, and C.-K. J. Shen
Epigenetic regulation of the Drosophila chromosome 4 by the histone H3K9 methyltransferase dSETDB1
PNAS, July 31, 2007; 104(31): 12691 - 12696.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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