title: Telomere fusion in Drosophila: The role of subtelomeric chromatin.
abstract: Drosophila telomeres are maintained by transposition to chromosome ends of the HeT-A, TART and TAHRE retrotransposons, collectively designated as HTT. Although all Drosophila telomeres terminate with HTT arrays and are capped by the terminin complex, they differ in the type of subtelomeric chromatin. The HTT sequences of YS, YL, XR, and 4L are juxtaposed to constitutive heterochromatin, while the HTTs of the other telomeres are linked to either the TAS repeat-associated chromatin (XL, 2L, 2R, 3L, 3R) or to the specialized 4R chromatin. We found that mutations in pendolino (peo) cause (telomeric fusions) that preferentially involve the heterochromatin-associated telomeres (Ha-telomeres), a telomeric fusion pattern never observed in the other 10 telomere-capping mutants characterized so far. Peo, is homologous to the E2 variant ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes and is required for DNA replication. Our analyses lead us to hypothesize that DNA replication in Peo-depleted cells results in specific fusigenic lesions concentrated in Ha-telomeres. These data provide the first demonstration that subtelomeres can affect telomere fusion.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biology and Biotechnology ; University of Rome ; Sapienza , Italy.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marzullo
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biology and Biotechnology ; University of Rome ; Sapienza , Italy.|b IBPM CNR, University of Rome ; Rome , Italy.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gatti
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002843:Chromatin / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D004261:DNA Replication; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009154:Mutation; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D018626:Retroelements / Q000502:physiology; D016615:Telomere / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000648:ultrastructure
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D018626:Retroelements; C000607218:peo protein, Drosophila
keywords: DNA replication; drosophila; heterochromatin; pendolino (Peo); subtelomeric chromatin; telomere fusion; terminin