TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hao, Yajing
A1  - Wang, Dongpeng
A1  - Wu, Shuheng
A1  - Li, Xiao
A1  - Shao, Changwei
A1  - Zhang, Peng
A1  - Chen, Jia-Yu
A1  - Lim, Do-Hwan
A1  - Fu, Xiang-Dong
A1  - Chen, Runsheng
A1  - He, Shunmin
T1  - Active retrotransposons help maintain pericentromeric heterochromatin required for faithful cell division
Y1  - 2020/11/01 
JF  - Genome Research 
JO  - Genome Research 
SP  - 1570 
EP  - 1582 
DO  - 10.1101/gr.256131.119 
VL  - 30 
IS  - 11 
UR  - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/30/11/1570.abstract 
N2  - Retrotransposons are populated in vertebrate genomes, and when active, are thought to cause genome instability with potential benefit to genome evolution. Retrotransposon-derived RNAs are also known to give rise to small endo-siRNAs to help maintain heterochromatin at their sites of transcription; however, as not all heterochromatic regions are equally active in transcription, it remains unclear how heterochromatin is maintained across the genome. Here, we address these problems by defining the origins of repeat-derived RNAs and their specific chromatin locations in Drosophila S2 cells. We demonstrate that repeat RNAs are predominantly derived from active gypsy elements and processed by Dcr-2 into small RNAs to help maintain pericentromeric heterochromatin. We also show in cultured S2 cells that synthetic repeat-derived endo-siRNA mimics are sufficient to rescue Dcr-2-deficiency-induced defects in heterochromatin formation in interphase and chromosome segregation during mitosis, demonstrating that active retrotransposons are required for stable genetic inheritance. 
ER  -