Recently, Di Chen, associate professor of Sino-French Hoffmann Institute, Guangzhou Medical University, published a paper as a co-corresponding author in Cell Reports titled “A Toll-dependent Bre1/Rad6-cact feedback loop in controlling host innate immune response” in collaboration with Shanming Ji, professor of Anhui University and an outstanding youth talent of Anhui province.

This study reports on the dual effect of the Drosophila Toll pathway activation on the control of expression of genes encoding anti-microbial peptides and on the cactus gene which is a negative regulator of this signaling. We were interested in the mechanisms of this dual effect and provide here evidence that upon pathogenic stimuli, Dorsal, one of the transcription factors of the fly Toll pathway, can induce the expression of the E3 ligase Bre1. We further show that Bre1 complexes with the E2 Rad6 to mono-ubiquitinate histone H2B, in turn promoting the transcription of cactus to achieve homeostasis of the Toll immune response. These studies uncover a novel Toll signal-dependent epigenetic regulatory machinery in governing the Toll pathway in Drosophila.

Di Chen is the correspondent authorof this paper and Sino-French Hoffmann Institute (SFHI), Guangzhou Medical University (GMU) is the co-affiliation of this paper. Shanming Ji is the last author and Anhui Agricultural University is the first affiliation of this paper. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and China Overseas Expertise Introduction Plan 111 (D18010).