CHRAC/ACF Contribute to the Repressive Ground State of Chromatin [Mnase-seq]

The chromatin remodeling complexes CHRAC and ACF combine the ATPase ISWI with the signature subunit ACF1. These enzymes catalyze well-studied nucleosome sliding reactions in vitro, but how their actions affect physiological gene expression is unclear. Here we explored the influence of Drosophila CHRAC/ACF on transcription by complementary gain- and loss-of-function approaches. Targeting ACF1 to multiple reporter genes inserted at many different genomic locations revealed a context-dependent inactivation of poorly transcribed reporters in repressive chromatin. Accordingly, single-embryo transcriptome analysis of a Acf knock-out allele showed that only lowly expressed genes are de-repressed in the absence of ACF1. Finally, the nucleosome arrays in Acf-deficient chromatin show loss of physiological regularity, particularly in transcriptionally inactive domains. Taken together our results highlight that ACF1-containing remodeling factors contribute to the establishment of an inactive ground state of the genome through chromatin organization. Overall design: MNase-Seq in Drosophila melanogaster embryos carrying a UAS-LacZ-mini-white transgene and expressing either Gal4DBD, Gal4-DBD-Acf1 or Acf1-Gal4DBD