HEY bHLH transcription factors have been shown to regulate multiple key steps in cardiovascular development. They can be induced by activated NOTCH receptors, but other upstream stimuli mediated by TGFß and BMP receptors may elicit a similar response. While the basic and helix-loop-helix domains exhibit strong similarity, large parts of the proteins are still unique and may serve divergent functions. The striking overlap of cardiac defects in HEY2 and combined HEY1/HEYL knockout mice suggested that all three HEY genes fulfill overlapping function in target cells. We therefore sought to identify target genes for HEY proteins by microarray expression and ChIPseq analyses in HEK293 cells, cardiomyocytes, and murine hearts. HEY proteins were found to modulate expression of their target gene to a rather limited extent, but with striking functional interchangeability between HEY factors. Chromatin immunoprecipitation revealed a much greater number of potential binding sites that again largely overlap between HEY factors. Binding sites are clustered in the proximal promoter region especially of transcriptional regulators or developmental control genes. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that HEY proteins primarily act as direct transcriptional repressors, while gene activation seems to be due to secondary or indirect effects. Mutagenesis of putative DNA binding residues supports the notion of direct DNA binding. While class B E-box sequences (CACGYG) clearly represent preferred target sequences, there must be additional and more loosely defined modes of DNA binding since many of the target promoters that are efficiently bound by HEY proteins do not contain an E-box motif. These data clearly establish the three HEY bHLH factors as highly redundant transcriptional repressors in vitro and in vivo, which explains the combinatorial action observed in different tissues with overlapping expression.

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process that transports cytoplasmic components to lysosomes for degradation. In addition to the canonical view of strict stress-response-induced autophagy, selectively programmed autophagy was recently reported in the context of gonad development of flies and worms, where autophagy seems to be necessary for clearance of germ plasm components. Similar functions have not been described in vertebrates. We used the medaka fish to study the role of autophagy in gonad formation and gametogenesis for the first time in a vertebrate organism for which the germ line is specified by germ plasm. Using a transgenic line deficient in the Ol-epg5 gene-a new critical component of the autophagy pathway-we show that such deficiency leads to an impaired autophagic flux, possibly attributed to compromised maturation or processing of the autophagosomes. Ol-epg5 deficiency correlates with selectively impaired spermatogenesis and low allele transmission rates of the mutant allele caused by failure of germ plasm and mitochondria clearance during the process of germ cell specification and in the adult gonads. The mouse epg-5 homolog is similarly expressed in the maturating and adult testes, suggesting an at least partially conserved function of this process during spermatogenesis in vertebrates.-Herpin, A., Englberger, E., Zehner, M., Wacker, R., Gessler, M., Schartl, M. Defective autophagy through epg5 mutation results in failure to reduce germ plasm and mitochondria. FASEB J. 29, 4145-4161 (2015). www.fasebj.org