Mi-2β associates with BRG1 and RET finger protein at the distinct regions with transcriptional activating and repressing abilities

Mi-2beta is the main component of the nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase complex and plays an important role in epigenetic transcriptional repression. Here we show that the amino-terminal and carboxyl-terminal regions of Mi-2beta have distinct transcriptional activities and bind to BRG1, a component of the SWI/SNF complex, and the RET finger protein (RFP), respectively. Analysis by luciferase reporter assay revealed that the amino-terminal region of Mi-2beta has a strong transactivating ability, whereas its carboxyl-terminal region has transcriptional repressive activity. Co-localization and association of Mi- 2, RFP, and histone deacetylase 1 suggested that these proteins cooperate in transcriptional repression. Furthermore, the functional importance of the association of Mi-2beta and RFP was confirmed by using Rfp(-/-) fibroblasts. On the other hand, we demonstrated that Mi- 2 and BRG1 were associated with each other and that the bromodomain region of BRG1 strongly suppressed transactivation by the amino-terminal region of Mi-2beta. The findings that Mi-2beta interacts with both transactivating and repressing proteins and directly associates with another chromatin remodeling protein, BRG1, provide new insight into the formation of multiprotein supercomplex involved in transcriptional regulation.