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High affinity chromodomains engineered for improved detection of histone modifications and enhanced CRISPR-based gene repression

ABSTRACT: Histone methylation is an important post-translational modification that plays a crucial role in regulating cellular functions, and its dysregulation is implicated in cancer and developmental defects. Therefore, systematic characterization of histone methylation is necessary to elucidate complex biological processes, identify biomarkers, and ultimately, enable drug discovery. Studying histone methylation relies on the use of antibodies, but these suffer from batch-to-batch variation, are costly, and cannot be used in live cells. Chromatin-modification reader domains are potential affinity reagents for methylated histones, but their application is limited by their modest affinities. We used phage display to identify key residues that greatly enhance the affinities of Cbx chromodomains for methylated histone marks and developed a general strategy for enhancing the affinity of most chromodomains of the human Cbx protein family. Our strategy allowed us to develop powerful probes for genome-wide binding analysis and live cell imaging. Furthermore, we used optimized chromodomains to develop extremely potent CRISPR-based repressors for tailored gene silencing. Our results highlight the power of engineered chromodomains for analyzing protein interaction networks involving chromatin and represent a modular platform for efficient gene silencing.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE188439 | GEO | 2022/09/08

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Methylation of DNA at CpG dinucleotides represents one of the most important epigenetic mechanisms involved in the control of gene expression in vertebrate cells. In this report, we conducted high-throughput nucleosome reconstitution experiments on 572 KB of human DNA and 668 KB of mouse DNA that was unmethylated or methylated in order to investigate the effects of this epigenetic modification on the positioning and stability of nucleosomes. The DNA loci from both species contained the genes that encode the serum albumin family, the MYC protein, and the tumor suppressor p53. The results demonstrated that a small subset of nucleosomes positioned by nucleotide sequence was sensitive to methylation where the modification increased the affinity of these sequences for the histone octamer. The features that distinguished these nucleosomes from the bulk of the methylation-insensitive nucleosomes were an increase in the frequency of CpG dinucleotides and a unique rotational orientation of CpGs such that their minor grooves tended to face toward the histones in the nucleosome rather than away. We propose that these features serve to enhance the affinity of methylated DNA for the histone octamer and that this effect could be involved in gene regulatory mechanisms such as silencing. These methylation-sensitive nucleosomes were preferentially associated with exons as compared to introns while unmethylated CpG islands near transcription start sites became enriched in nucleosomes upon methylation. The results of this study suggest that the effects of DNA methylation on nucleosome stability in vitro can recapitulate what has been observed in the cell and provide a direct link between DNA methylation and the structure and function of chromatin. For the human data, there were 3 unmethylated nucleosome replicates, 2 methylated nucleosome replicates, an unmethylated MNase control, and an unmethylated sonicated control. For the mouse data, there were 2 unmethylated nucleosome replicates, 2 methylated nucleosome replicates, an unmethylated MNase control, a methylated MNase control, and an unmethylated sonicated control.

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High affinity chromodomains engineered for improved detection of histone modifications and enhanced CRISPR-based gene repression

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