Project description:Inborn defects in DNA repairare associated with complex developmental disorders whose causal mechanisms are poorly understood. Using an in vivo biotinylation tagging approach in mice, we show that the nucleotide excision repair (NER) structure-specific endonuclease ERCC1-XPF complex interacts with the insulator binding protein CTCF, the cohesin subunits SMC1A and SMC3 and with MBD2; the factors co-localize with ATRX at the promoters and control regions (ICRs) of imprinted genes during postnatal hepatic development. Loss of Ercc1or exposure to mitomycin C triggers the localization of CTCF to heterochromatin, the dissociation of the CTCF-cohesin complex and ATRXfrom promoters and ICRs,altered histone marks and the aberrant developmental expression of imprinted genes without altering DNA methylation. We propose that ERCC1-XPF cooperates with CTCF and the cohesinto facilitatet he developmental silencing of imprinted genes and that persistent DNA damage triggers chromatin changes that affect gene expression programs associated with NER disorders.
Project description:Parental imprinting is a form of epigenetic regulation that results in parent-of-origin differential gene expression. To study Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a developmental imprinting disorder, we generated patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) harboring distinct deletions in the affected region on chromosome 15. Studying PWS-iPSCs and human parthenogenetic iPSCs unexpectedly revealed substantial upregulation of virtually all maternally expressed genes (MEGs) in the imprinted DLK1-DIO3 locus on chromosome 14. Subsequently, we identified IPW, a long noncoding RNA in the critical region of the PWS locus, as a regulator of the DLK1-DIO3 region, as its over-expression in PWS and parthenogenetic iPSCs results in downregulation of the MEGs in this locus. We further show that gene expression changes in the DLK1-DIO3 region coincide with chromatin modifications, rather than DNA methylation levels. Our results suggest that a subset of PWS phenotypes may arise from dysregulation of an imprinted locus distinct from the PWS region. Gene expression analysis was performed on a total of 4 human cell lines, including 3 Prader-Willi Syndrome indcued pluripotent stem cell lines - derived from 3 affected individuals and one of their parental fibroblast cell line.
Project description:Long non-coding (lnc) RNAs are numerous and found throughout the mammalian genome, and many are thought to be involved in the regulation of gene expression. However, the majority remain relatively uncharacterised and of uncertain function making the use to model systems to uncover their mode of action valuable. Imprinted lncRNAs target and recruit epigenetic silencing to a cluster of imprinted genes on the same chromosome, making them one of the best characterized lncRNAs to silence distant genes in cis. In this study we examined silencing of the distant imprinted gene Slc22a3 by the lncRNA Airn in the Igf2r imprinted cluster in mouse. Previously we proposed that imprinted lncRNAs may silence distant imprinted genes by disrupting promoter-enhancer interactions by being transcribed through the enhancer, which we called the enhancer interference hypothesis. Here we tested this hypothesis by first using allele-specific chromosome conformation capture (3C) to detect interactions between the Slc22a3 promoter and the locus of the Airn lncRNA that silences it on the paternal chromosome. In agreement with the model we found interactions enriched on the maternal allele, but across the entire Airn gene consistent with multiple enhancer-promoter interactions. Therefore, to further test the enhancer interference hypothesis we devised an approach to delete the entire Airn gene. However, the deletion showed that there are no essential enhancers for Slc22a3 within the Airn gene, strongly indicating that the Airn RNA rather than its transcription is responsible for silencing distant imprinted genes. Therefore we propose an alternative hypothesis whereby the chromosome interactions may initially guide the lncRNA to target imprinted promoters and recruit repressive chromatin, and that these interactions are lost once silencing is established.
Project description:Naive pluripotent epiblast cells of the preimplantation murine embryo and their in vitro counterpart, embryonic stem (ES) cells, have the capacity to give rise to all cells of the adult. Such developmental plasticity is associated with global genome hypomethylation. It is unclear whether genome methylation is dynamically regulated only via differential expression of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) and Ten-eleven Translocation (TET) enzymes, which oxidase methylated DNA. Here we show that LIF/Stat3 signalling induces genomic hypomethylation via metabolic reconfiguration. In Stat3-/- ES cells we observed decreased alpha-ketoglutarate (ɑKG) production from reductive Glutamine metabolism, leading to decreased TET activity, increased Dnmt3a/b expression and to a global increase in DNA methylation. Notably, genome methylation is dynamically controlled by simply modulating αKG availability, mitochondrial activity or Stat3 activation in mitochondria, indicating effective crosstalk between metabolism and the epigenome. Stat3-/- ES cells also show increased methylation at Imprinting Control Regions accompanied with differential expression of >50% of imprinted genes. Single-cell transcriptome analysis of Stat3-/- embryos confirmed dysregulated expression of Dnmt3a/b, Tet2, and imprinted genes in vivo. Our results reveal that the LIF/Stat3 signal bridges the metabolic and epigenetic profiles of naive pluripotent cells, ultimately controlling genome methylation and imprinted gene expression. Several imprinted genes regulate cell proliferation and are often misregulated in tumors. Moreover, a wide range of cancers display Stat3-overactivation, raising the possibility that the molecular module we described here is exploited under pathological conditions.
Project description:In pluripotential reprogramming, a pluripotent state is established within somatic cells. In this study, we have generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from bi-maternal (uniparental) parthenogenetic neural stem cells (pNSCs) by transduction with four (Oct4, Klf4, Sox2, and c-Myc) or two (Oct4 and Klf4) transcription factors. The parthenogenetic iPS (piPS) cells directly reprogrammed from pNSCs were able to generate germline-competent himeras, and hierarchical clustering analysis showed that piPS cells were clustered more closer to parthenogenetic ES cells than normal female ES cells. Interestingly, piPS cells showed loss of parthenogenetic-specific imprinting patterns of donor cells. Microarray data also showed that the maternally imprinted genes, which were not expressed in pNSCs, were upregulated in piPS cells, indicating that pluripotential reprogramming lead to induce loss of imprinting as well as re-establishment of various features of pluripotent cells in parthenogenetic somatic cells. 5 samples were analyzed by microarray, each one them in duplicate. fNSC: Mouse female NSC (Neural Stem Cell) pNSC: Mouse parthenogenetic NSC (Neural Stem Cell) piPS-2F: Mouse parthenogenetic induced pluripotent cells derived from NSC overexpressing Oct4 and Klf4 pESC-B: Mouse parthenogenetic ESC (Embryonic Stem Cell) SSEA-1 sorted fESC: Mouse female ESC (Embryonic Stem Cell) OG2
Project description:During development, transcriptional and chromatin modification changes co-occur but the order and causality of events often remain unclear. We explore the interrelationship of these processes using the paradigm of X-chromosome inactivation (XCI). We initiate XCI in female, mouse embryonic stem cells by inducing Xist expression and monitor changes in transcription and chromatin by allele-specific TT-seq and ChIP-seq respectively. An unprecedented temporal resolution enabled identification of the earliest chromatin alterations during XCI. We demonstrate that HDAC3 interacts with both NCOR1 and NCOR2 and is pre-bound on the X chromosome where it deacetylates histones to promote efficient gene silencing. We also reveal the choreography of polycomb accumulation following Xist RNA coating, with PRC1-associated H2AK119Ub preceding PRC2-associated H3K27me3. Furthermore, polycomb-associated marks accumulate initially at large, intergenic domains and then spreads into genes but only in the context of gene silencing. Our results provide the hierarchy of chromatin events during XCI and demonstrate that some chromatin changes play key roles in mediating transcriptional silencing.
Project description:Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon in which the expression of a gene is determined in a parent-of-origin-dependent manner. Imprinted genes play an important role in the normal growth and development of mammals, and mutations at the imprinting sites result in gene dysfunction and many genetic disorders. To identify new human imprinted differentially methylated regions (DMRs), we compared the global levels of DNA methylation in androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells and parthenogenetic induced pluripotent stem cells using DNA methyl-capture sequencing analysis.