Molecular determinants of phase separation for Drosophila DNA replication licensing factors
Abstract
Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) in proteins can drive the formation of membraneless compartments in cells. Phase-separated structures enrich for specific partner proteins and exclude others. Previously, we showed that the IDRs of metazoan DNA replication initiators drive DNA-dependent phase separation in vitro and chromosome binding in vivo, and that initiator condensates selectively recruit replication-specific partner proteins (Parker et al., 2019). How initiator IDRs facilitate LLPS and maintain compositional specificity is unknown. Here, using D. melanogaster (Dm) Cdt1 as a model initiation factor, we show that phase separation results from a synergy between electrostatic DNA-bridging interactions and hydrophobic inter-IDR contacts. Both sets of interactions depend on sequence composition (but not sequence order), are resistant to 1,6-hexanediol, and do not depend on aromaticity. These findings demonstrate that distinct sets of interactions drive condensate formation and specificity across different phase-separating systems and advance efforts to predict IDR LLPS propensity and partner selection a priori.
Data availability
All data generated during this study is included in the manuscript and supporting files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM141045-01)
- James M Berger
- Michael R Botchan
National Cancer Institute (R01CA030490)
- James M Berger
- Michael R Botchan
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (F32GM116393)
- Matthew W Parker
UC Berkeley Jessie Rabinowitz Award
- Jonchee A Kao
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RR200070)
- Matthew W Parker
Welch Foundation (I-2074-20210327)
- Matthew W Parker
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Stephen P Bell, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Version history
- Preprint posted: April 12, 2021 (view preprint)
- Received: June 1, 2021
- Accepted: December 23, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 24, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: February 3, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Parker et al.
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.
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