Mechanism and functional role of the interaction between CP190 and the architectural protein Pita in Drosophila melanogaster

The architectural protein Pita is critical for Drosophila embryogenesis and predominantly binds to gene promoters and insulators. In particular, Pita is involved in the organization of boundaries between regulatory domains, controlled by the expression of three hox genes in the Bithorax complex (BX-C). The best-characterized partner for Pita is the BTB/POZ-domain containing protein CP190. Here, we precisely mapped two unstructured regions of Pita that interact with the BTB domain of CP190. The deletion of the CP190-interacting regions did not significantly affect the binding of the mutant Pita protein to most chromatin sites. The expression of the mutant protein completely complemented the null pita mutation. However, the mutant Pita protein does not support the ability of multimerized Pita sites to prevent cross-talk between the iab-6 and iab-7 regulatory domains that activate the expression of Abdominal-B (Abd-B), one of the genes in the BX-C. The recruitment of the Pita region and the interaction with CP190 and the polytene chromosomes of larvae induces the formation of a new interband, which is a consequence of the formation of open chromatin in this region. These results suggested that the interaction with CP190 is required for the primary Pita activities, but other architectural proteins may also recruit CP190 in flies expressing only the mutant Pita protein. ChIP-seq signal of the Flag and CP190 architectural/insulator proteins occupancy in whole embryo during embryonic development at 0-12h after egg-laying in Pita wt and Pita ΔCP1+2 lines.