Journal article
MORC1 represses transposable elements in the mouse male germline
WA Pastor, H Stroud, K Nee, W Liu, D Pezic, S Manakov, SA Lee, G Moissiard, N Zamudio, D Bourc'his, AA Aravin, AT Clark, SE Jacobsen
Nature Communications | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2014
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6795
Open access
Abstract
The Microrchidia (Morc) family of GHKL ATPases are present in a wide variety of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms but are of largely unknown function. Genetic screens in Arabidopsis thaliana have identified Morc genes as important repressors of transposons and other DNA-methylated and silent genes. MORC1-deficient mice were previously found to display male-specific germ cell loss and infertility. Here we show that MORC1 is responsible for transposon repression in the male germline in a pattern that is similar to that observed for germ cells deficient for the DNA methyltransferase homologue DNMT3L. Morc1 mutants show highly localized defects in the establishment of DNA methylation at speci..
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Awarded by Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the UCLA BSCRC Flow Cytometry core for flow and FACS assistance, and the UCLA BSCRC High Throughput Sequencing Core. Bryan Cullen provided anti-IAP Gag antibody and Alexander Bortvin provided anti-LINE ORF1p antibody. Jiamu Du and Dinshaw Patel provided recombinant MORC1 coiled-coil domain to raise antibody. W.A.P. is supported by the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research. H.S. is an HHMI Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (DRG-2194-14). W.L. is supported by a grant from the Chinese Scholar Council. This work was supported by grants from the NIH (R01 HD058047 and DP2 OD007371A), a Research Award from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and the Nogradi Fund, the Searle Scholar and the Packard Fellowship Awards, and an ANR grant ("TranspoFertil"). S.E.J. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.