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Joyce, EF, McKim KS. 2007. When specialized sites are important for synapsis and the distribution of crossovers. Bioessays. 29:217-26.Website

Robinson, DM, Go Y B, Greenblatt M, Dismukes CG. 2010. Water Oxidation by λ-MnO2: Catalysis by the Cubical Mn4O4 Subcluster Obtained by Delithiation of Spinel LiMn2O4. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 132:11467-11469. AbstractWebsite

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Staley, B K, Irvine KD. 2010. Warts and yorkie mediate intestinal regeneration by influencing stem cell proliferation. Current biology : CB. 20:1580-7. AbstractWebsite

Homeostasis in the Drosophila midgut is maintained by stem cells [1, 2]. The intestinal epithelium contains two types of differentiated cells that are lost and replenished: enteroendocrine (EE) cells and enterocytes (ECs). Intestinal stem cells (ISCs) are the only cells in the adult midgut that proliferate [3, 4], and ISC divisions give rise to an ISC and an enteroblast (EB), which differentiates into an EC or an EE cell [3-5]. If the midgut epithelium is damaged, then ISC proliferation increases [6-12]. Damaged ECs express secreted ligands (Unpaired proteins) that activate Jak-Stat signaling in ISCs and EBs to promote their proliferation and differentiation [7, 9, 13, 14]. We show that the Hippo pathway components Warts and Yorkie mediate a transition from low- to high-level ISC proliferation to facilitate regeneration. The Hippo pathway regulates growth in diverse organisms and has been linked to cancer [15, 16]. Yorkie is activated in ECs in response to tissue damage or activation of the damage-sensing Jnk pathway. Activation of Yorkie promotes expression of unpaired genes and triggers a nonautonomous increase in ISC proliferation. Our observations uncover a role for Hippo pathway components in regulating stem cell proliferation and intestinal regeneration.

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Li, Y., Segal, G., Wang, Q., Dooner HK. In Press. Gene tagging with engineered Ds elements in maize. Methods in Molecular Biology: Plant Transposable Elements.

Robb, NC, Cordes T, Hwang L C, Gryte K, Duchi D, Craggs TD, Santoso Y, Weiss S, Ebright RH, Kapanidis AN. 2013. The transcription bubble of the RNA polymerase-promoter open complex exhibits conformational heterogeneity and millisecond-scale dynamics: implications for transcription start-site selection.. Journal of molecular biology. 425:875-885. Abstract

Bacterial transcription is initiated after RNA polymerase (RNAP) binds to promoter DNA, melts ~14 base-pairs around the transcription start site, and forms a single-stranded "transcription bubble" within a catalytically active RNAP-DNA open complex (RP(o)). There is significant flexibility in the transcription start site, which causes variable spacing between the promoter elements and the start site; this in turn causes differences in the length and sequence at the 5' end of RNA transcripts, and can be important for gene regulation. The start-site variability also implies the presence of some flexibility in the positioning of the DNA relative to the RNAP active site in RP(o). The flexibility may occur in the positioning of the transcription bubble prior to RNA synthesis and may reflect bubble expansion ("scrunching") or bubble contraction ("unscrunching"). Here, we assess the presence of dynamic flexibility in RP(o) with single-molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer. We obtain experimental evidence for dynamic flexibility in RP(o) using different FRET rulers and labelling positions. An analysis of FRET distributions of RP(o) using burst variance analysis reveals conformational fluctuations in RP(o) in the millisecond timescale. Further experiments using subsets of nucleotides and DNA mutations allowed us to reprogram the transcription start sites, in a way that can be described by repositioning of the single-stranded transcription bubble relative to the RNAP active site within RP(o). Our study marks the first experimental observation of conformational dynamics in the transcription bubble of RP(o) and indicates that DNA dynamics within the bubble affect the search for transcription start sites.

Oh, H, Slattery M, Ma L, Crofts A, White KP, Mann RS, Irvine KD. 2013. Genome-wide association of Yorkie with chromatin and chromatin-remodeling complexes. Cell reports. 3:309-18. AbstractWebsite

The Hippo pathway regulates growth through the transcriptional coactivator Yorkie, but how Yorkie promotes transcription remains poorly understood. We address this by characterizing Yorkie's association with chromatin and by identifying nuclear partners that effect transcriptional activation. Coimmunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry identify GAGA factor (GAF), the Brahma complex, and the Mediator complex as Yorkie-associated nuclear protein complexes. All three are required for Yorkie's transcriptional activation of downstream genes, and GAF and the Brahma complex subunit Moira interact directly with Yorkie. Genome-wide chromatin-binding experiments identify thousands of Yorkie sites, most of which are associated with elevated transcription, based on genome-wide analysis of messenger RNA and histone H3K4Me3 modification. Chromatin binding also supports extensive functional overlap between Yorkie and GAF. Our studies suggest a widespread role for Yorkie as a regulator of transcription and identify recruitment of the chromatin-modifying GAF protein and BRM complex as a molecular mechanism for transcriptional activation by Yorkie.

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