Project description:Nephron endowment is determined by the self-renewal and induction of a nephron progenitor pool established at the onset of kidney development. In the mouse, the related transcriptional regulators Six1 and Six2 play non-overlapping roles in nephron progenitors. Transient Six1 activity prefigures, and is essential for, active nephrogenesis. In contrast, Six2 maintains later progenitor self-renewal from the onset of nephrogenesis. We compared Six2’s regulatory actions in mouse and human nephron progenitors by chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq). Surprisingly, SIX1 was identified as a SIX2 target unique to the human nephron progenitors. Further, RNA-seq and immunostaining revealed overlapping SIX1 and SIX2 progenitor activity in the 16 week human fetal kidney. Human SIX1 ChIP-seq revealed a similar set of targets to SIX2, and predicted both factors bind DNA through an identical recognition site. In contrast to the mouse where Six2 binds its own enhancers but doesn’t interact with DNA around Six1, both human SIX1 and SIX2 bind homologous SIX2 enhancers and putative enhancers positioned around SIX1. Transgenic analysis of a putative human SIX1 enhancer in the mouse revealed a transient, mouse-like, pre-nephrogenic, Six1 regulatory pattern. Together, these data demonstrate a divergence in SIX-factor regulation between mouse and human nephron progenitors. In the human, an auto/cross-regulatory loop drives continued SIX1 and SIX2 expression during active nephrogenesis. In contrast, the mouse establishes only an auto-regulatory Six2 loop. It is tempting to speculate that differential SIX-factor regulation may contribute to species differences in the duration of progenitor programs and nephron output.
Project description:The vertebrate Six1 and Six2 arose by gene duplication from the Drosophila so (sine oculis) and have since diverged in their developmental expression patterns. Both genes are expressed in nephron progenitors of human fetal kidneys, and mutations in SIX1 or SIX2 cause branchio-oto-renal or renal hypodysplasia respectively. Since ~80% of SIX1 target sites are shared by SIX2, it is speculated that SIX1 and SIX2 may be functionally interchangeable by targeting common downstream genes. In contrast, in mouse kidneys, the expression of Six1 and Six2 only transiently overlaps in the metanephric mesenchyme before the onset of ureteric branching, and only Six2 expression is maintained in the nephron progenitors throughout development. This non-overlapping expression between Six1 and Six2 in mouse nephron progenitors promoted us to examine if Six1 can replace Six2. Surprisingly, forced expression of Six1 failed to rescue Six2-deficient kidney hypoplasia. We found that Six1 mediated Eya1 nuclear translocation and inhibited premature epithelialization of the progenitors but failed to rescue the proliferation defects and cell death caused by Six2-knockout. Genome-wide binding analyses showed that Six1 only bound to a small subset of Six2 target sites, but many Six2-bound loci that are crucial to the renewal and differentiation of nephron progenitors lacked Six1 occupancy. Thus, these data indicate that Six1 cannot substitute Six2 to drive nephrogenesis in mouse kidneys, demonstrating that these two transcription factors have not maintained equivalent biochemical properties since their divergence early in vertebrate evolution.
Project description:SIX2 is expressed by the self-renewing nephron progenitors in the human fetal kidney. We have also discovered that SIX1 is expressed in nephron progenitor population of the human fetal kidney, which is in contrast to the mouse. We performed ChIP-seq of SIX1 and SIX2 in order to identify the target genes of each factor and compare the role that each factor plays in transcriptional regulation of the nephron progenitors. We additionally performed ChIP-seq for p300 and H3K27ac in order to identify active loci and complement the transcription factor data.
Project description:Six1 is a critical transcription factor for specifying cell fates in multiple organs and shares common DNA-binding sites with Six2/4/5. However, its molecular function in defining the specificity of Six1-DNA interactions and in instructing cell fates is poorly understood. We performed Six1 ChIP-seq analyses in E10.5 mouse embryos and E13.5 cochleae to map genome-wide CRMs through which Six1 and its interacting TFs function in a combinatorial fashion to control the network of gene regulation necessary for proper development. Genome-wide characterization has identified a robust set of Six1 targets in embryos and auditory sensory epithelium, including genes participating in Wnt/Notch/Shh/Fgf signaling pathways and regulators critical for auditory hair cell formation. Our data provide insights into how Six1 acts in multiple regulatory networks operating in distinct cell types at different stages.
Project description:Nephron endowment is determined by the self-renewal and induction of a nephron progenitor pool established at the onset of kidney development. In the mouse, the related transcriptional regulators Six1 and Six2 play non-overlapping roles in nephron progenitors. Transient Six1 activity prefigures, and is essential for, active nephrogenesis. In contrast, Six2 maintains later progenitor self-renewal from the onset of nephrogenesis. We compared Six2’s regulatory actions in mouse and human nephron progenitors by chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq). Surprisingly, SIX1 was identified as a SIX2 target unique to the human nephron progenitors. Further, RNA-seq and immunostaining revealed overlapping SIX1 and SIX2 progenitor activity in the 16 week human fetal kidney. Human SIX1 ChIP-seq revealed a similar set of targets to SIX2, and predicted both factors bind DNA through an identical recognition site. In contrast to the mouse where Six2 binds its own enhancers but doesn’t interact with DNA around Six1, both human SIX1 and SIX2 bind homologous SIX2 enhancers and putative enhancers positioned around SIX1. Transgenic analysis of a putative human SIX1 enhancer in the mouse revealed a transient, mouse-like, pre-nephrogenic, Six1 regulatory pattern. Together, these data demonstrate a divergence in SIX-factor regulation between mouse and human nephron progenitors. In the human, an auto/cross-regulatory loop drives continued SIX1 and SIX2 expression during active nephrogenesis. In contrast, the mouse establishes only an auto-regulatory Six2 loop. It is tempting to speculate that differential SIX-factor regulation may contribute to species differences in the duration of progenitor programs and nephron output.
Project description:Nephron progenitors in the embryonic kidney propagate while generating differentiated nephrons. However, the progenitors in mice terminally differentiate shortly after birth. We defined culture conditions to selectively propagated nephron progenitors in vitro in an undifferentiated state. To understand how expression profiles of Six2+ cells changed during culture in vitro compared with in vivo, we performed microarray analysis of Six2+ cells at E11.5 (starting material) and P0 (experiencing 8 days in vivo), and cultured Six2+ cells at E11.5 for 8 days or 19 days. Microarray analysis were performed with isolated Six2-positive nephron progenitors from transgenic mice embryo at E11.5 or P0, and cultured E11.5 Six2+ cells for 8 or 19 days in conditioned media. P0 non-progenitors represent Six2-GFP-negative cells at P0.
Project description:The Six2 distal enhancer regulates expression of the 60 kb-downstream gene Six2, but does not regulate the Six3 gene which is 70 kb further downstream. CTCF ChIP-Seq and Hi-C data points to a chromatin domain boundary between Six2 and Six3 which may intervene interaction between Six2-DE and Six3. The irradiation-induced Brachyrrhine (Br) mutant allele was found to carry a 320 kb genomic inversion that includes Six2 and Six3, but not Six2DE. This repositioned Six2 under Six3 enhancer control and Six3 under Six2 distal enhancer control. Consistent with this, Six3 is ectopically expressed in Br/+ kidneys and Six2 expression is reduced. To test whether there is a change of interaction between Six2 distal enhancer and Six2 or Six3 promoters, we performed 4C-Seq in E16.5 wildtyp or Br/+ mice nephron-genic zone cells.
Project description:Eya1 interacts with Six1/2 to induce nephron fate and promote nephron progenitor self-renewal. Haploinsufficiency for these genes in humans causes kidney agenesis or hypoplasia. However, how the Eya1-centered network operates remains elusive. Here we identify Eya1's interacting factors via mass-spectrometry and show that Eya1 and Six2 interact with Brg1-based SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex in the kidney. Depletion of Brg1 results in lack of metanephric mesenchyme and depletion of nephron progenitor cells, which is linked to loss of Eya1 expression. Transcriptional profiling reveals conspicuous downregulation of the proto-oncogene Pbx1 and the Dchs1/Fat4 signaling but premature upregulation of a large subset of genes for podocyte lineages and aberrant activation of oncogenic factors in Brg1-deficent cell. ChIP-seq identifies Brg1-occupancy to enhancers at Pbx1 to a distal enhancer of Eya1 that drives nephron progenitor-specific expression. We demonstrate Six2-dependent Brg1 enrichment to the proximal-promoter of Mycn and two distal enhancers of Pbx1, all of which govern nephron progenitor-specific expression in response to binding to Six2. Together, our results suggest a possible mechanism through which the functional specificity of Brg1-BAFs and Eya1-Six2 in cell cycle regulation and self-renewal of the nephron progenitors may be in part achieved.
Project description:O-GlcNAcylation is a global post translational modification. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of O-GlcNAcylation in mice kidney proximal tubules. We used drug-inducible proximal tubular cells specific O-GlcNAc transferase (Ogt) KO mice (PTEC-Ogt KO). In this proteomic analysis, we compared kidney cortex from fasted PTEC-Ogt KO and Control mice.