Establishment of regions of genomic activity during the Drosophila maternal to zygotic transition

Abstract
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Abstract

We describe the genome-wide distributions and temporal dynamics of nucleosomes and post-translational histone modifications throughout the maternal-to-zygotic transition in embryos of Drosophila melanogaster. At mitotic cycle 8, when few zygotic genes are being transcribed, embryonic chromatin is in a relatively simple state: there are few nucleosome free regions, undetectable levels of the histone methylation marks characteristic of mature chromatin, and low levels of histone acetylation at a relatively small number of loci. Histone acetylation increases by cycle 12, but it is not until cycle 14 that nucleosome free regions and domains of histone methylation become widespread. Early histone acetylation is strongly associated with regions that we have previously shown to be bound in early embryos by the maternally deposited transcription factor Zelda, suggesting that Zelda triggers a cascade of events, including the accumulation of specific histone modifications, that plays a role in the subsequent activation of these sequences.

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Xiao-Yong Li

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Melissa M Harrison

University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jacqueline E Villalta

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Tommy Kaplan

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Michael B Eisen

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

For correspondence
mbeisen@berkeley.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.