Drosophila insulator proteins exhibit in-vivo liquid-liquid phase separation properties

Abstract

Mounting evidence implicates liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), the condensation of biomolecules into liquid-like droplets in the formation and dissolution of membraneless intracellular organelles (MLOs). Eukaryotic cells utilize MLOs or condensates for various biological processes, including emergency signaling, spatiotemporal control over steady-state biochemical reactions and heterochromatin formation. Insulator proteins function as architectural elements involved in establishing independent domains of transcriptional activity within eukaryotic genomes. In Drosophila, insulator proteins coalesce to form nuclear foci known as insulator bodies in response to osmotic stress and during apoptosis. However, the mechanism through which insulator proteins assemble into bodies and whether these bodies confer any genome function are yet to be fully investigated. Here, we identify signatures of liquid-liquid phase separation by insulator bodies, including high disorder tendency in insulator proteins, scaffold-client dependent assembly, extensive fusion behavior, sphericity, and sensitivity to 1,6-hexanediol. We also show that the cohesin subunit Rad21 is a component of insulator bodies adding to the known insulator proteins and the histone variant {gamma}H2Av constituents. Our data suggest a concerted role of cohesin and insulator proteins in insulator body formation and under physiological conditions. We propose a mechanism whereby these architectural proteins modulate 3D genome organization through LLPS.