YY1 regulates DNA-DNA interaction

The DNA Guanine quadruplexes (G4) plays important roles in multiple cellular processes, including regulation of DNA replication, transcription and genome stability. Here, we show that Yin Yang-1 (YY1), a ubiquitously expressed and multifunctional transcription factor, can bind with G4 structures directly. Fluorescence anisotropy experiments shows that YY1 binds towards G4 structures with Kd in low nanomolar range (<100 nM) through the C terminal zinc finger domains. ChIP-seq results show that 81% of the YY1 ChIP-seq peaks contain G4 forming sequences, which is highly overlapped with the G4 ChIP-seq peaks. YY1 facilitate the DNA-DNA interaction through its binding with G4 structures in vivo and in vitro, which can be disturbed by G4 stabilizer treatment. In all, our studies identify a novel G4 structure binding protein-YY1, and reveal that G4 structure functions in DNA-DNA interaction. We performed the ChIPseq and HiChIP for YY1 with or without PDS or TMPYP4 treatment. At least two replicates were done for each experiments.