Mono-methylated histones control PARP-1 in chromatin and transcription.

PARP-1 is central to transcriptional regulation under both normal and stress conditions, with the governing mechanisms yet to be fully understood. Our biochemical and ChIP-seq-based analyses showed that PARP-1 binds specifically to active histone marks, particularly H4K20me1. We found that H4K20me1 plays a critical role in facilitating PARP-1 binding and the regulation of PARP-1-dependent loci during both development and heat shock stress. Here, we report that the sole H4K20 mono-methylase, pr-set7, and parp-1 Drosophila mutants undergo developmental arrest. RNA-seq analysis showed an absolute correlation between PR-SET7- and PARP-1-dependent loci expression, confirming co-regulation during developmental phases. PARP-1 and PR-SET7 are both essential for activating hsp70 and other heat shock genes during heat stress, with a notable increase of H4K20me1 at their gene body. Mutating pr-set7 disrupts monomethylation of H4K20 along heat shock loci and abolish PARP-1 binding there. These data strongly suggest that H4 monomethylation is a key triggering point in PARP-1 dependent processes in chromatin.

PARP-1 is a transcriptional rheostat of metabolic and bivalent genes during development.

PARP-1 participates in various cellular processes, including gene regulation. In Drosophila, PARP-1 mutants undergo developmental arrest during larval-to-pupal transition. In this study, we investigated PARP-1 binding and its transcriptional regulatory role at this stage. Our findings revealed that PARP-1 binds and represses active metabolic genes, including glycolytic genes, whereas activating low-expression developmental genes, including a subset of "bivalent" genes in third-instar larvae. These bivalent promoters, characterized by dual enrichment of low H3K4me3 and high H3K27me3, a unimodal H3K4me1 enrichment at the transcription start site (conserved in C. elegans and zebrafish), H2Av depletion, and high accessibility, may persist throughout development. In PARP-1 mutant third-instar larvae, metabolic genes typically down-regulated during the larval-to-pupal transition in response to reduced energy needs were repressed by PARP-1. Simultaneously, developmental and bivalent genes typically active at this stage were activated by PARP-1. In addition, glucose and ATP levels were significantly reduced in PARP-1 mutants, suggesting an imbalance in metabolic regulation. We propose that PARP-1 is essential for maintaining the delicate balance between metabolic and developmental gene expression programs to ensure proper developmental progression.

Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ating enzymes coordinate changes in the expression of metabolic genes with developmental progression.

Metabolism, known to be temporally regulated to meet evolving energy demands, plays a crucial role in shaping developmental pace. Recent studies have demonstrated that two key proteins PARP1 and PARG play a regulatory role in the transcription of both morphogenic and metabolic genes. Intriguingly, in Drosophila, the depletion of PARP1 or PARG proteins causes a developmental arrest before pupation, resulting in individuals unable to complete their development. This phenotype highlights the critical involvement of poly(ADP-ribosyl)ating enzymes in regulating the metamorphic process. In this study, we provide compelling evidence that these enzymes intricately coordinate transcriptional changes in both developmental and metabolic pathways during metamorphosis. Specifically, they promote the expression of genes crucial for pupation, while simultaneously negatively regulating the expression of metabolic genes before the transition to the pupal stage. Additionally, these enzymes suppress the expression of genes that are no longer required during this transformative period. Our findings shed light on the intricate interplay between poly(ADP-ribosyl)ating enzymes, developmental processes, and metabolic regulation before metamorphosis and highlight a new role of poly(ADP-ribosyl)ating enzymes in the global regulation of transcription.

Cooperative targeting of PARP-1 domains to regulate metabolic and developmental genes.

PARP-1, also known as poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1, is a multifunctional nuclear enzyme that plays a critical role in transcriptional regulation through its three functional domains: the N-terminal DNA-binding domain (DBD) containing two zinc fingers for DNA binding and a third zinc finger for maintaining interdomain contacts, the auto modification domain (AD), and the C-terminal domain, which includes the protein-interacting WGR domain and the catalytic domain. Despite the critical role that PARP-1 plays in regulating gene expression, the mechanisms by which it is targeted to chromatin are not well understood. In this study, we aimed to understand the targeting of PARP-1 to chromatin using ChIP-seq of YFP-tagged deletional isoforms of PARP-1 (ZnI, ZnII, AD-WGR) and a construct that lacks only ZnI (ΔZnI). Our results indicate that other PARP-1 domains are sufficient to target PARP-1 to active genes in the absence of ZnI. Furthermore, we found that PARP-1 represses metabolic gene pathways and activates developmental gene pathways. The results of ChIP-seq analysis showed that PARP-1 and ΔZnI were preferentially bound to the gene bodies of PARP-1-regulated metabolic genes compared to developmental genes. PARP-1 domains (ZnI, ZnII and AD-WGR) also preferentially occupied the gene bodies of PARP-1-regulated metabolic genes, however, they were more enriched at the TSS of PARP-1-regulated developmental genes compared to metabolic genes. Thus, we propose that PARP-1 domains cooperatively target PARP-1 to PARP-1-regulated genes to coordinate metabolic and developmental gene expression programs.

The Drosophila gene encoding JIG protein (CG14850) is critical for CrebA nuclear trafficking during development.

Coordination of mitochondrial and nuclear processes is key to the cellular health; however, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms regulating nuclear-mitochondrial crosstalk. Here, we report a novel molecular mechanism controlling the shuttling of CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein) protein complex between mitochondria and nucleoplasm. We show that a previously unknown protein, herein termed as Jig, functions as a tissue-specific and developmental timing-specific coregulator in the CREB pathway. Our results demonstrate that Jig shuttles between mitochondria and nucleoplasm, interacts with CrebA protein and controls its delivery to the nucleus, thus triggering CREB-dependent transcription in nuclear chromatin and mitochondria. Ablating the expression of Jig prevents CrebA from localizing to the nucleoplasm, affecting mitochondrial functioning and morphology and leads to Drosophila developmental arrest at the early third instar larval stage. Together, these results implicate Jig as an essential mediator of nuclear and mitochondrial processes. We also found that Jig belongs to a family of nine similar proteins, each of which has its own tissue- and time-specific expression profile. Thus, our results are the first to describe the molecular mechanism regulating nuclear and mitochondrial processes in a tissue- and time-specific manner.

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Approach to Determine How PARP1 Domains Affect Binding Pattern to Chromatin.

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) is an enzyme involved in the regulation of different cellular mechanisms, ranging from DNA repair to regulation of gene expression. The different PARP1 domains have been shown to influence PARP1 binding pattern to chromatin. However, which loci bound by PARP1 are affected in the absence of a specific domain is not known. To determine the binding pattern of the different PARP1 domains, we used a ChIP-seq approach on different GFP-tagged versions of PARP1. Here, we described how to perform and analyze ChIP-seq performed with a GFP antibody in Drosophila melanogaster third instar larvae.