The Drosophila nucleosome remodeling factor NURF is required for Ecdysteroid signaling and metamorphosis
- Paul Badenhorst1,2,6,
- Hua Xiao1,
- Lucy Cherbas3,
- So Yeon Kwon2,
- Matt Voas4,
- Ilaria Rebay4,
- Peter Cherbas3, and
- Carl Wu1,5
- 1Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA; 2Department of Anatomy, Institute of Biomedical Research, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT, United Kingdom; 3Department of Biology and Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA; 4Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Abstract
Drosophila NURF is an ISWI-containing ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling complex that regulates transcription by catalyzing nucleosome sliding. To determine in vivo gene targets of NURF, we performed whole genome expression analysis on mutants lacking the NURF-specific subunit NURF301. Strikingly, a large set of ecdysone-responsive targets is included among several hundred NURF-regulated genes. Null Nurf301 mutants do not undergo larval to pupal metamorphosis, and also enhance dominant-negative mutations in ecdysone receptor. Moreover, purified NURF binds EcR in an ecdysone-dependent manner, suggesting it is a direct effector of nuclear receptor activity. The conservation of NURF in mammals has broad implications for steroid signaling.
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Footnotes
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Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.
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Article and publication are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1342605.
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Corresponding authors.
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↵6 E-MAIL p.w.badenhorst{at}bham.ac.uk; FAX 44-121-414-3599.
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↵5 E-MAIL carlwu{at}helix.nih.gov; FAX (301) 435-3697.
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- Accepted August 26, 2005.
- Received June 9, 2005.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
