Functional sub-division of the Drosophila genome via chromatin looping: the emerging importance of CP190

Insulators help in organizing the eukaryotic genomes into physically and functionally autonomous regions through the formation of chromatin loops. Recent findings in Drosophila and vertebrates suggest that insulators anchor multiple loci through long-distance interactions which may be mechanistically linked to insulator function. Important to such processes in Drosophila is CP190, a common co-factor of insulator complexes. CP190 is also known to associate with the nuclear matrix, components of the RNAi machinery, active promoters and borders of the repressive chromatin domains. Although CP190 plays a pivotal role in insulator function in Drosophila, vertebrates lack a probable functional equivalent of CP190 and employ CTCF as the major factor to carry out insulator function/chromatin looping. In this review, we discuss the emerging role of CP190 in tethering genome, specifically in the perspective of insulator function in Drosophila. Future studies aiming genome-wide role of CP190 in chromatin looping is likely to give important insights into the mechanism of genome organization.