Paolo Moroni, Myriam Passannante, Karin Brunschwig, Anne-Laure Chanez, Vanessa Cerantola and Fritz Mller. The NuRD (nucleosome remodeling and histone deacetylase) complex is thought to be involved in the establishment of repressive chromatin structures during development and in the negative control of gene expression. In vertebrates, this complex comprises at least seven polypeptides, including the SWI2/SNF2 helicase/ATPase Mi-2, the histone deacetylases HDAC1/2, the histone-binding proteins RbAp46/48, the metastasis-associated proteins MTA1/2, the methyl-CpG binding protein MBD3 and the potent transcriptional repressor
p66. Orthologues of these NuRD subunits are also encoded by the genome of C.elegans, among them the two Mi-2 homologues LET-418 and CHD-3.. Mutations in
let-418 show a pleiotropic phenotype, including sterility and larval arrest (von Zelewsky and al., 2000), whereas
chd-3 mutants exhibit no obvious defects. However, a null mutation of
chd-3 enhances the
let-418 phenotype. This suggests that the two proteins have partially redundant functions during development (von Zelewsky et al., 2000).. To find proteins interacting with LET-418 and CHD-3 and to characterize putative NuRD complexes in C.elegans, we take different approaches. We use standard biochemical techniques, such as co-immunoprecipitation, tandem affinity purification (TAP) and yeast two-hybrid screens.. Our preliminary data suggest that LET-418 and CHD-3 may not be interchangeable members of the same complex, but rather are part of different NuRD or NuRD-like complexes.. von Zelewsky and al., Development 127: 5277-5284 (2000)