The Role of Maternal HP1a in Early Drosophila Embryogenesis via Regulation of Maternal Transcript Production

To study the function of HP1a during development, we investigated the role of maternal HP1a in the production of maternal transcripts that drive early Drosophila embryogenesis. A systematic, genome-wide identification (ChIP-seq,mRNA-seq) of genes and pathways that are disrupted upon maternal HP1a deficiency revealed that maternal HP1a positively regulates genes involved in translation, mRNA splicing, and cell division, while it negatively regulates genes involved in neurogenesis, organ growth and germ cell development, which all occur later in development.