Molecular Signatures of retrotransposon Ty3 insertion into the RNA Polymerase III transcription initiation site (Rpc34)

The Gypsy-like element Ty3 inserts proximal to the transcription start sites of genes transcribed by RNA polymerase 3 (RNAP3). In this study, a random-barcode Ty3 was used to count Ty3 insertions at specific sites. Surprisingly, saturation transposition of the yeast genome showed that tDNAs even within isoacceptor families are targeted at widely different frequencies. Ectopic expression of Ty3 integrase showed that it localizes to integration targets independent of other Ty3 proteins. Binding of integrase, RNAP3 and factor Brf1 at individual targets did not differ to the same extent as integration. Metadata analysis showed that histone modification H3K4Ac correlated positively with insertion frequency. Targeting frequency could be reconstituted on high copy plasmids containing only 75 bp of 5' flanking sequence plus the tDNA target. Weighting of insertions according to frequency identified an A/T-rich sequence followed by C as the site of gene-proximal strand transfer. This site lies immediately adjacent to the adenines of the RNAP3 transcription start site motif (CAA). Recent structures of DNA in RNAP3 initiation complexes show that in the initiation complex the transcription start site is sharply bent at the position adjacent to the gene-proximal Ty3 strand transfer. We propose that Ty3 integration occurs in two steps: in the first, host Brf1 engages integrase; in the second, integrase exploits YR flexibility, and that together, these steps determine the wide range of Ty3 targeting frequencies. Overall design: In the S. cerevisiae strain BY4741, the genomic RPC34 gene was modified to express a N-terminal 3X FLAG tagged protein for ChIP-seq. The native RPC34 gene protmoter was retained to maintain wild type gene expression after modification.