The maintenance of heterochromatin regions by RITS complexes has been described as a self-reinforcing feedback loop, in which RITS complexes stably bind the methylated histones of a heterochromatin region using the Chp1 protein and induce co-transcriptional degradation of any nascent messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts, which are then used as RNA-dependent RNA polymerase substrates to replenish the complement of siRNA molecules to form more RITS complexes. The RITS complex localizes to heterochromatic regions through the base pairing of the nascent heterochromatic transcripts as well as through the Chp chromodomain which recognizes methylated histones found in heterochromatin. Once incorporated into the heterochromatin, the RITS complex is also known to play a role in the recruitment of other RNAi complexes as well as other chromatin modifying enzymes to specific genomic regions. Heterochromatin formation, but possibly not maintenance, is dependent on the ribonuclease protein dicer, which is used to generate the initial complement of siRNAs.