The control of transcriptional memory by stable mitotic bookmarking

To maintain cellular identities during development, gene expression profiles must be faithfully propagated through cell generations. The reestablishment of gene expression patterns upon mitotic exit is thought to be mediated, in part, by mitotic bookmarking by transcription factors (TF). However, the mechanisms and functions of TF mitotic bookmarking during early embryogenesis remain poorly understood. In this study, taking advantage of the naturally synchronized mitoses of Drosophila early embryos, we provide evidence that the pioneer-like transcription factor GAF acts as stable mitotic bookmarker during zygotic genome activation. We report that GAF remains associated to a large fraction of its interphase targets (37%). Mitotically-bound loci include cis-regulatory sequences of key developmental genes, with both active and repressive chromatin signatures. GAF mitotic targets are globally accessible during mitosis and a subset is also mitotically bookmarked via histone acetylation (H4K8ac). By monitoring the kinetics of transcriptional activation in living embryos, we provide evidence that GAF binding establishes competence for rapid activation upon mitotic exit. GAF and H4K8ac ChIP-seq was performed on 1-2h30 interphase and mitotic embryos to determine the targets of GAF and H4K8ac in interphase and mitotic chromatin.