Three classes of neurons form synapses in the antennal lobe of Drosophila, the insect counterpart of the vertebrate olfactory bulb: olfactory receptor neurons, projection neurons, and inhibitory local interneurons. We have targeted a genetically encoded optical reporter of synaptic transmission to each of these classes of neurons and visualized population responses to natural odors. The activation of an odor-specific ensemble of olfactory receptor neurons leads to the activation of a symmetric ensemble of projection neurons across the glomerular synaptic relay. Virtually all excited glomeruli receive inhibitory input from local interneurons. The extent, odor specificity, and partly interglomerular origin of this input suggest that inhibitory circuits assemble combinatorially during odor presentations. These circuits may serve as dynamic templates that extract higher order features from afferent activity patterns.

The mechanisms allowing remote enhancers to regulate promoters several kilobase pairs away are unknown but are blocked by the Drosophila suppressor of Hairy-wing protein (Suhw) that binds to gypsy retrovirus insertions between enhancers and promoters. Suhw bound to a gypsy insertion in the cut gene also appears to act interchromosomally to antagonize enhancer-promoter interactions on the homologous chromosome when activity of the Chip gene is reduced. Development of multicellular organisms requires precise temporal and spatial regulation of gene expression. Much of this regulation depends on proteins that bind transcription enhancers. For enhancers separated by a few hundred base pairs from their promoter, DNA looping may be sufficient to allow interactions between basal factors at the promoter and the enhancer-binding proteins. Many complex developmentally regulated genes, however, contain multiple enhancers, which can be many kilobase pairs from the promoter. Enhancers require more than DNA looping to interact with the promoter over such remote distances. For instance, either a UAS or a higher eukaryotic enhancer must be upstream and promoter-proximal to activate transcription in yeast cells, yet both will function downstream of the gene in higher eukaryotic cells (Struhl 1989). This suggests that, in contrast to yeast, higher eukaryotes have factors that facilitate remote enhancer-promoter interactions.The effects of insertions of the gypsy retrovirus on enhancer activity in Drosophila lend support to the enhancer-facilitator hypothesis. Gypsy insertions block enhancer-promoter communication, without inactivating either the enhancer or promoter, when, and only when, they are between the enhancer and promoter (for review, see Dorsett 1996; Geyer 1997). The Suhw protein encoded by suppressor of Hairy-wing [su(Hw)] that binds to specific sequences in gypsy insertions is necessary and sufficient to block enhancers.A common domain in Suhw is required for gypsy insertions to block enhancers in several different genes (Harrison et al. 1993;Kim et al. 1996), suggesting that Suhw blocks all enhancers by the same mechanism. Enhancer blocking is distance independent and reversible (Dorsett 1993), and blocked enhancers remain active because they can activate a second promoter in the other direction (Cai and Levine 1995;Scott and Geyer 1995

Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)7-cyclin H, the CDK-activating kinase (CAK) and TFIIH-associated kinase in metazoans can be activated in vitro through T-loop phosphorylation or binding to the RING finger protein MAT1. Although the two mechanisms can operate independently, we show that in a physiological setting, MAT1 binding and T-loop phosphorylation cooperate to stabilize the CAK complex of Drosophila. CDK7 forms a stable complex with cyclin H and MAT1 in vivo only when phosphorylated on either one of two residues (Ser164 or Thr170) in its T-loop. Mutation of both phosphorylation sites causes temperature-dependent dissociation of CDK7 complexes and lethality. Furthermore, phosphorylation of Thr170 greatly stimulates the activity of the CDK7- cyclin H-MAT1 complex towards the C-terminal domain of RNA polymerase II without significantly affecting activity towards CDK2. Remarkably, the substrate-specific increase in activity caused by T-loop phosphorylation is due entirely to accelerated enzyme turnover. Thus phosphorylation on Thr170 could provide a mechanism to augment CTD phosphorylation by TFIIH-associated CDK7, and thereby regulate transcription.

We generated mutant alleles of Drosophila melanogaster in which expression of the linker histone H1 can be down-regulated over a wide range by RNAi. When the H1 protein level is reduced to ;20% of the level in wildtype larvae, lethality occurs in the late larval -pupal stages of development. Here we show that H1 has an important function in gene regulation within or near heterochromatin. It is a strong dominant suppressor of position effect variegation (PEV). Similar to other suppressors of PEV, H1 is simultaneously involved in both the repression of euchromatic genes brought to the vicinity of pericentric heterochromatin and the activation of heterochromatic genes that depend on their pericentric localization for maximal transcriptional activity. Studies of H1-depleted salivary gland polytene chromosomes show that H1 participates in several fundamental aspects of chromosome structure and function. First, H1 is required for heterochromatin structural integrity and the deposition or maintenance of major pericentric heterochromatin-associated histone marks, including H3K9Me 2 and H4K20Me 2 . Second, H1 also plays an unexpected role in the alignment of endoreplicated sister chromatids. Finally, H1 is essential for organization of pericentric regions of all polytene chromosomes into a single chromocenter. Thus, linker histone H1 is essential in Drosophila and plays a fundamental role in the architecture and activity of chromosomes in vivo.[Keywords: Linker histone H1; heterochromatin; histone methylation; polytene chromosomes; chromocenter; position effect variegation] Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org. The genomes of eukaryotes are packaged into a highly compact nucleoprotein complex called chromatin. The histones constitute a family of proteins that are intimately involved in organizing chromatin structure. There are five major classes of histones: the core histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, and the linker histones usually referred to as H1. The nucleosome core particle is the highly conserved repetitive unit of chromatin organization. It consists of an octamer of the four core histones around which ;145 base pairs (bp) of DNA are wrapped and protected from nuclease digestion (Van Holde 1988;Wolffe 1998). The linker histone H1 binds to core particles and protects an additional ;20 bp of DNA (linker DNA). In metazoans, the abundance of linker histones, although variable during development, approaches that of core histones (Woodcock et al. 2006), suggesting that they play an important role in establishing and maintaining the structure of the chromatin fiber.Much of our knowledge about the roles of linker histones comes from in vitro studies. These studies indicate that two principal functions of linker histones are to stabilize the DNA entering and exiting the core particle and to facilitate the folding of nucleosome arrays into more compact structures (Ramakrishnan 1997;Wolffe 1997). H1 also affects nucleosome core particle spacing and mobility. In vitro studies also suggest that H1 acts pri...

The Drosophila mod(mdg4) gene products counteract heterochromatin-mediated silencing of the white gene and help activate genes of the bithorax complex. They also regulate the insulator activity of the gypsy transposon when gypsy inserts between an enhancer and promoter. The Su(Hw) protein is required for gypsymediated insulation, and the Mod(mdg4)-67.2 protein binds to Su(Hw). The aim of this study was to determine whether Mod(mdg4)-67.2 is a coinsulator that helps Su(Hw) block enhancers or a facilitator of activation that is inhibited by Su(Hw). Here we provide evidence that Mod(mdg4)-67.2 acts as a coinsulator by showing that some loss-of-function mod(mdg4) mutations decrease enhancer blocking by a gypsy insert in the cut gene. We find that the C terminus of Mod(mdg4)-67.2 binds in vitro to a region of Su(Hw) that is required for insulation, while the N terminus mediates self-association. The N terminus of Mod(mdg4)-67.2 also interacts with the Chip protein, which facilitates activation of cut. Mod(mdg4)-67.2 truncated in the C terminus interferes in a dominant-negative fashion with insulation in cut but does not significantly affect heterochromatin-mediated silencing of white. We infer that multiple contacts between Su(Hw) and a Mod(mdg4)-67.2 multimer are required for insulation. We theorize that Mod(mdg4)-67.2 usually aids gene activation but can also act as a coinsulator by helping Su(Hw) trap facilitators of activation, such as the Chip protein.