In Collaboration with Daniel Fisher (Montpellier Institute of Molecular Genetics – CNRS, Université de Montpellier), we showed that Ki-67 plays an important role during nucleologenesis.
Specifically, we showed that Ki-67 is important for PR (Perichromosomal Region) formation:
During mitosis, the nucleolus undergoes a dramatic cycle of disassembly and reassembly. Briefly, soon after the onset of mitosis, when transcription is shut down, the nucleolus is rapidly disassembled; it then slowly reforms through the formation of intermediary organelles with precursor-product relationship, identifying at least three distinct organelle stages, and the process is complete by telophase. The first of these three intermediary organelles is a sheath of nucleolar proteins that forms around the surface of the mitotic chromosomes, the so-called ’peri-chromosomal region’ or PR. To date, not much is known about the trans-acting factors involved in PR formation. Remarkably, we found that Ki-67 depletion totally disrupted PR formation and PES1 (in green in the Figure) no longer associate with the chromosome surface.
Antigen Ki-67 is a nuclear protein expressed in proliferating mammalian cells. It is widely used in cancer histopathology but its functions remain unclear. Here, we show that Ki-67 controls heterochromatin organisation. Altering Ki-67 expression levels did not significantly affect cell proliferation in vivo. Ki-67 mutant mice developed normally and cells lacking Ki-67 proliferated efficiently. Conversely, upregulation of Ki-67 expression in differentiated tissues did not prevent cell cycle arrest. Ki-67 interactors included proteins involved in nucleolar processes and chromatin regulators. Ki-67 depletion disrupted nucleologenesis but did not inhibit pre-rRNA processing. In contrast, it altered gene expression. Ki-67 silencing also had wide-ranging effects on chromatin organisation, disrupting heterochromatin compaction and long-range genomic interactions. Trimethylation of histone H3K9 and H4K20 was relocalised within the nucleus. Finally, overexpression of human or Xenopus Ki-67 induced ectopic heterochromatin formation. Altogether, our results suggest that Ki-67 expression in proliferating cells spatially organises heterochromatin, thereby controlling gene expression.
Published in eLife (2016);5:e13722. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.13722