Gene regulation by human orthologs of Drosophila heterochromatin protein 1

Heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) functions in gene silencing, transcriptional regulation, and chromatin remodeling. Drosophila HP1 enhances position effect variegation and has also been shown to repress transcription of some euchromatic genes and activate some heterochromatic ones. The purpose of this study was to determine if human orthologs of Drosophila HP1 differentially regulate transcription by identifying genes that are targets for regulation by HP1 family proteins in human cells. Using a gene expression array, we identify several genes regulated by overexpression of the three human HP1 family proteins HP1 Hsα, HP1 Hsβ, and HP1 Hsγ. We show further that overexpressed HP1 Hsα and HP1 Hsβ repress the transcription of four human genes while overexpressed HP1 Hsγ enhances transcription of the same genes. These results show that different human HP1 family proteins can potentially repress or activate the same genes.