Effect of histone H2Av depletion on temperature dependence of the Drosophila S2R+ cell transcriptome

The histone H2A variant H2A.Z has a crucial role in the regulation of temperature-dependent gene expression in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. To evaluate whether the Drosophila homolog histone H2Av has a similar role in the control of the transcriptional response to temperature change, we depleted this histone variant by RNA interference in S2R+ cells and analyzed the effect on the transcriptome after temperature shifts to different temperatures (14, 25 and 30°C). For control, we performed analogous experiments using treatment with lacZ dsRNA instead of His2Av dsRNA. S2R+ cells were treated with either His2Av dsRNA or lacZ dsRNA at the optimal growth temperature (25°C) before shifting culture aliquots to different temperatures (14, 25 and 30°C). Twenty-four hours after the temperature shift, RNA was isolated and processed for hybridization to microarrays. Three replicate experiments were performed.