Genetics, Vol 140, 1007-1017, Copyright © 1995

INVESTIGATIONS

Distance and Pairing Effects on the brown(Dominant) Heterochromatic Element in Drosophila

S. Henikoff, J. M. Jackson and P. B. Talbert
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, Washington 98104

We examined the behavior of the brown(Dominant) (bw(D)) heterochromatic insertion moved to different locations relative to centric heterochromatin. Effects were measured as the degree of silencing of a wild-type brown eye pigment gene by bw(D) across a tandem duplication. A series of X-ray-induced effects were recovered at high frequency. Cis-acting enhancers were obtained by relocation of the duplication closer to autosomal heterochromatin. Enhancers were also recovered on the homologous chromosome when it was similarly rearranged, revealing a novel interhomologue effect whereby interactions occur between genetic elements near opposite ends of a chromosome arm rather than between paired alleles. Cis-acting suppressors were obtained as secondary rearrangements in which the duplication was moved farther away from heterochromatin. Suppression was correlated with loss of cytological association between bw(D) and the polytene chromocenter. Surprisingly, the distance from bw(D) to the chromocenter was not correlated with the strength of enhancement or suppression. We propose that bw(D) fails to coalesce with the chromocenter when its position along the chromosome places it beyond a threshold distance from heterochromatin, and this threshold depends upon the configuration of both the chromosome carrying bw(D) and its paired homologue.

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