555B Poster - 07. Chromatin, epigenetics and genomics
Friday April 08, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Authors:
Isabella Draper; Sammy Lee; Max Richmond; Patrick Ferree

Affiliation: Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA

Keywords:
n. other (chromatin disruptors); j. epigenetics

Thousands of plants and animals are known to contain parasitic B chromosomes, many which drive, or segregate at super-Mendelian frequencies. An intriguing question is how B chromosome drive occurs at the mechanistic level. Recently we discovered a toxin gene, named haploidizer, which is expressed by the Paternal Sex Ratio (PSR) chromosome in the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis. The presence of PSR causes complete elimination of the paternally inherited half of the wasp’s genome, an action that converts female-destined embryos into males, the PSR-transmitting sex. Reduction of haploidizer transcripts in the testis by RNAi caused strong suppression of PSR’s genome eliminating activity, demonstrating that this gene is essential in this function. To begin to understand the role of haploidizer, we performed yeast 2-hybrid (Y2H) screening with the putatively encoded HAPLOIDIZER protein. In the relatively small group of potential interactors, we found several proteins that may perform chromatin-associated functions. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that PSR disrupts some aspect of paternal chromatin remodeling following sperm entry into the egg. Our group is currently using RNAi to test these candidate HAPLOIDIZER interactors.