Polycomb mediates Myc autorepression and its transcriptional control of many loci in Drosophila. Author Julie Goodliffe, Eric Wieschaus, Michael Cole Publication Year 2005 Type Journal Article Abstract Aberrant accumulation of the Myc oncoprotein propels proliferation and induces carcinogenesis. In normal cells, however, an abundance of Myc protein represses transcription at the c-myc locus. Cancer cells often lose this autorepression. We examined the control of myc in Drosophila and show here that the Drosophila ortholog, dmyc, also undergoes autorepression. We find that the developmental repressor Polycomb (Pc) is required for dmyc autorepression, and that this Pc-dMyc-mediated repression spreads across an 875-kb region encompassing the dmyc gene. To further investigate the relationship between Myc and Polycomb, we used microarrays to identify genes regulated by each, and identify a striking relationship between the two: A large set of dMyc activation targets is normally repressed by Pc, and 73% of dMyc repression targets require Pc for this repression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation confirmed that many dMyc-Pc-repressed loci have an epigenetic mark recognized by Pc. Our results suggest a novel relationship between Myc and Polycomb, wherein Myc enhances Polycomb repression in order to repress targets, and Myc suppresses Polycomb repression in order to activate targets. Keywords Animals, Drosophila, Drosophila Proteins, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Down-Regulation, Gene Expression Profiling, Transcription Factors, Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis, DNA-Binding Proteins, Quantitative Trait Loci, Chromatin, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation, Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 Journal Genes Dev Volume 19 Issue 24 Pages 2941-6 Date Published 12/2005 Alternate Journal Genes Dev. Google ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML