Project description:Herpesvirus latency is generally thought to be governed by epigenetic modifications, but the dynamics of viral chromatin at early timepoints of latent infection are poorly understood. Here, we report a comprehensive spatial and temporal analysis of epigenetic modifications during latent infection with Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV), the etiologic agent of Kaposi's sarcoma and primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). Using high resolution tiling microarrays in conjunction with immunprecipitation of methylated DNA (MeDIP) and modified histones (ChIP), we have determined global patterns of epigenetic modifications across the KSHV genome in several tumor-derived cell lines as well as de novo infected endothelial cells, revealing highly distinct landscapes of epigenetic modifications associated with latent KSHV infection. We find that KSHV genomes are subject to profound methylation at CpG dinucleotides, leading to the establishment of characteristic global DNA methylation patterns. However, such patterns evolved slowly and thus are unlikely to govern latency early during the infection process. In contrast, we observed that latent histone modification patterns were rapidly established upon a de novo infection. Our analysis furthermore demonstrates that such patterns are not characterized by the absence of activating histone modifications, since both H3K9/K14-ac and H3K4-me3 marks were prominently detected at several loci, including the promoter of the lytic cycle transactivator Rta. While these regions were furthermore largely devoid of the constitutive heterochromatin marker H3K9-me3, we observed rapid and widespread deposition of H3K27-me3 across latent KSHV genomes, a bivalent modification which is able to repress transcription despite of the simultaneous presence of activating marks. Our findings suggest that the epigenetic patterns identified here induce a poised state of repression during viral latency, which can be rapidly reversed once the lytic cycle is induced. This dataset contains our ChIP-on-chip data; the MeDIP data are deposited in a separate dataset.

Project description:The establishment of latency is an essential step for the life-long persistent infection and pathogenesis of KaposiM-bM-^@M-^Ys sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV). While the KSHV genome is chromatin-free in the virions, the viral DNA in latently infected cells has a chromatin structure that is characterized by a specific pattern of activating and repressive histone modifications that ultimately promote latent gene expression while suppressing lytic gene expression. To investigate the molecular events involved in the establishment of the latent chromatin structure during the pre-latency phase of KSHV infection, we performed a comprehensive epigenetic study to analyze the recruitment of chromatin regulatory factors onto the KSHV genome at various time-points following de novo infection of SLK and TIME cells. This showed that the KSHV genome undergoes a biphasic chromatinization following de novo infection. Initially, a transcriptionally active chromatin (euchromatin), characterized by high levels of the H3K4me3 and acetylated H3K27 (H3K27ac) activating histone marks, was deposited on the viral episome and was accompanied by the temporary induction of a limited number of lytic genes. Interestingly, transient expression of the RTA protein facilitated the increases of H3K4me3 and H3K27ac occupancy on the KSHV episome during de novo infection. Between 24-72 hours post-infection, as the levels of these activating histone marks declined on the KSHV genome, the levels of the repressive H3K27me3 and H2AK119ub histone marks increased concomitantly with the decline of lytic gene expression. Importantly, this transition to heterochromatin was dependent on both the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 and 1. In contrast, upon infection of human gingiva-derived epithelial cells, the KSHV genome underwent a continuously transcription-active euchromatinization, resulting in efficient lytic gene expression. Our data demonstrate that the KSHV genome undergoes a temporally ordered biphasic euchromatin-to-heterochromatin transition in endothelial cells, leading to latent infection, whereas KSHV preferentially adopts a transcriptionally active euchromatin in oral epithelial cells, resulting in lytic gene expression. Our results suggest that the differential epigenetic modification of the KSHV genome in distinct cell types is a potential determining factor for latent infection vs. lytic replication of KSHV. Please see above. 16 hybridizations: ChIP and Input DNA

Project description:The Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) genome consists of an approximately 140 kb unique coding region flanked by 30-40 copies of 0.8 kb terminal repeat (TR) sequence. KSHV genomes persist in latently infected cells as episomes via tethering to the host cell chromosomes, and KSHV latency associated nuclear antigen (LANA) plays a crucial role in latent episomal DNA replication and segregation during host cell mitosis by binding to TR. While TR's function in plasmid maintenance is well-established, TR’s transcription regulatory roles as gene enhancer has not been fully explored. Gene enhancer harbors transcription enzymes via arrays of transcription factors bindings and often forms phase separate nuclear body in part through recruitment of BRD4 and MED1 that contain intrinsically disordered domain. Here we show KSHV TR possesses transcription regulatory function with LANA. A series of Cleavage Under Targets & Release Using Nuclease (CUT&RUN) demonstrated that TR fragments are occupied by histone modifying enzymes that are known to interact with LANA in naturally infected cells, and the TR possessed characteristic enhancer histone modifications. The H3K4me3 and H3K27Ac modification were also conserved in unique region of the KSHV genome among three PEL cells, and the KSHV Origin of lytic replication (Ori-Lyt) showed similar protein and histone modification occupancies with TR's. In the Ori-Lyt region, the LANA protein complex colocalizes with H3K27Ac-modified nucleosome along with paused RNA polymerase II, and the nucleosome is franked by two K-Rta recruitment sites. The isolated reporter assays demonstrated that neighboring TR fragments enhanced viral lytic gene promoter activity independent of orientation in KSHV-infected and non-infected 293FT cells. K-Rta transactivation function was drastically enhanced with TR, while LANA acquired promoter repression function when the reporter was ligated with TR. The deletion of LANA acidic repeat sequence, a highly-disordered protein domain, further increased gene repression functions. Combined, the TR region is (i) an epigenetically active DNA element that is stitched within 12.5 kb (20-40 copies), (ii) has an array of transcription factor (LANA) binding sites, (iii) recruited by transcription related enzymes including BRD4 (bromodomain containing 4), (iv) decorated by histone H3K27Ac marks, and (v) possesses orientation-independent transcription activation function. KSHV TR is therefore an enhancer domain for KSHV inducible genes. However, in contrast to cellular enhancers that are bound by multiple transcription factors, perhaps KSHV enhancer is predominantly regulated by the LANA nuclear body on the TR. We suggest that KSHV evolved a clever mechanism to tightly control the latency-lytic switch with the TR/LANA complex.

Dataset Information

The landscape of transcription initiation across latent and lytic KSHV genomes

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