Project description:Adipose tissue is important for systemic metabolic homeostasis in response to environmental changes, and adipogenesis involves dynamic transcriptional regulation. DNA methylation on cytosine (C) of CpG (5mC) is an abundant epigenetic modification that mediates genomic imprinting and regulates gene expression. TET family enzymes (TET1, TET2 and TET3) oxidize the 5mC in DNA to 5-hydroxylmethylcytosine (5hmC), which associates with transcriptional activation. Through a phenotypic screen, we found TET inhibition decreased adipocyte differentiation from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Comparing with the undifferentiated MSCs, the differentiated adipocytes exhibited much higher levels of 5hmC and slightly increased 5fC and 5caC. Higher 5hmC associated with better differentiation at single cell level. TET1 is upregulated in differentiation and depletion of it significantly impaired the gain of 5hmC. Furthermore, Tet1 depletion significantly hampered the adipocyte differentiation in vitro and adipose tissue maintenance in vivo. Using RNA-seq, 5mC and 5hmC-DNA immunoprecipitation, we found that Tet1 knockout led to decreased expression of genes associated with lipid metabolism and fat cell differentiation. Genes with loss of 5mC or gain of 5hmC in adipocytes include Lipe, Bmp4 and Rxra etc. Rxra is one of the critical TET1 modulated genes for adipose development, as RXRα agonist partially rescued the inhibitory effect of Tet1 knockout. Together, TET1-mediated active DNA demethylation plays an important role in adipose tissue.
Project description:Adipose tissue is important for systemic metabolic homeostasis in response to environmental changes, and adipogenesis involves dynamic transcriptional regulation. DNA methylation on cytosine (C) of CpG (5mC) is an abundant epigenetic modification that mediates genomic imprinting and regulates gene expression. TET family enzymes (TET1, TET2 and TET3) oxidize the 5mC in DNA to 5-hydroxylmethylcytosine (5hmC), which associates with transcriptional activation. Through a phenotypic screen, we found TET inhibition decreased adipocyte differentiation from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Comparing with the undifferentiated MSCs, the differentiated adipocytes exhibited much higher levels of 5hmC and slightly increased 5fC and 5caC. Higher 5hmC associated with better differentiation at single cell level. TET1 is upregulated in differentiation and depletion of it significantly impaired the gain of 5hmC. Furthermore, Tet1 depletion significantly hampered the adipocyte differentiation in vitro and adipose tissue maintenance in vivo. Using RNA-seq, 5mC and 5hmC-DNA immunoprecipitation, we found that Tet1 knockout led to decreased expression of genes associated with lipid metabolism and fat cell differentiation. Genes with loss of 5mC or gain of 5hmC in adipocytes include Lipe, Bmp4 and Rxra etc. Rxra is one of the critical TET1 modulated genes for adipose development, as RXRα agonist partially rescued the inhibitory effect of Tet1 knockout. Together, TET1-mediated active DNA demethylation plays an important role in adipose tissue.
Project description:Surveillance of DNA methylation in mammals is critical for genome stability and epigenetic regulation. The discovery of the ten-eleven translocation (TET) proteins catalyzing the oxidation from 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), 5-formylcytosine (5fC), and 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) revolutionized the understanding of DNA methylation dynamics. Interestingly, in recent years evidence accumulated that TET1 also harbours non-catalytic functions. However, the role and mechanism of TET1 DNA demethylation independent functions still remain poorly understood. Here, we use genome engineering and quantitative multi-omics approaches to dissect the non-catalytic role of TET1. Strikingly, we find that the majority of transcriptional regulation depends on non-catalytic functions of TET1. To gain insights into possible mechanisms by which TET1 regulates transcription independent of DNA demethylation, we asked if the loss of TET1 is accompanied by changes in the histone modificaiton landscape. To this end, we compared the relative abundances of core histone modifications between Tet1 KO, Tet1 CM and WT mESCs using quantitative LC-MS/MS analysis. Surprisingly, we observed a profound global reduction of pH4Kac and H4K20me3 as well as H3K27me3 in Tet1 KO mESC. Vice versa, the monomethylation states of the latter two residues, H3K27me1 and H4K20me1 were significantly increased in Tet1 KO. Similar to the results from the transcriptome data, most of these changes were specific to Tet1 KO cells.
Project description:Growth arrest and DNA-damage-inducible protein 45 (Gadd45) family members have been implicated in DNA demethylation in vertebrates. However, it remained unclear how they contribute to the demethylation process. Here, we demonstrate that Gadd45a promotes active DNA demethylation through thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG) which has recently been shown to excise 5-formylcytosine (5fC) and 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) generated in Ten-eleven-translocation (Tet) -initiated oxidative demethylation. The connection of Gadd45a with oxidative demethylation is evidenced by the enhanced activation of a methylated reporter gene in HEK293T cells expressing Gadd45a in combination with catalytically active TDG and Tet. Gadd45a interacts with TDG physically and increases the removal of 5fC and 5caC from genomic and transfected plasmid DNA by TDG. Knockout of both Gadd45a and Gadd45b from mouse ES cells leads to hypermethylation of specific genomic loci most of which are also targets of TDG and show 5fC enrichment in TDG-deficient cells. These observations indicate that the demethylation effect of Gadd45a is mediated by TDG activity. This finding thus unites Gadd45a with the recently defined Tet-initiated demethylation pathway. The dataset includes RRBS anlysis of 2 WT ES cell samples and 2 Gadd45a/b DKO ES cell samples.
Project description:Ten-eleven translocation (TET) proteins oxidize 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), 5-formylcytsosine (5fC), and 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC). 5fC/5caC can be excised and repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathway, implicating 5mC oxidation in active DNA demethylation. Genome-wide DNA methylation is erased in the transition from metastable states to ground state of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and in migrating primordial germ cells (PGCs), while some resistant regions become demethylated only in gonadal PGCs. Understanding the mechanisms underlying global hypomethylation in naïve ESCs and developing PGCs will be useful for realizing cellular pluripotency and totipotency. In this study, we found that PRDM14, the PR-domain-containing transcriptional regulator, accelerates the TET-BER cycle, resulting in the promotion of active DNA demethylation in ESCs. Induction of PRDM14 expression rapidly removed the 5mC associated with transient elevation of 5hmC at pluripotency-associated genes, germline-specific genes, and imprinted loci but not across the entire genome, which resemble second wave of DNA demethylation in gonadal PGCs. PRDM14 physically interacts with TET1/TET2 and enhances the recruitment of TET1/TET2 at target loci. Knockdown of Tet1/Tet2 impaired transcriptional regulation and DNA demethylation by PRDM14. The repression of the BER pathway by administration of pharmacological inhibitors against APE1 and PARP1 and the knockdown of thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG) also impaired DNA demethylation by PRDM14. Furthermore, DNA demethylation induced by PRDM14 normally takes place in the presence of aphidicolin, which is an inhibitor of G1/S progression. Together, our analysis provides mechanistic insight into DNA demethylation in naive pluripotent stem cells and developing PGCs. To investigate the function of TET1/TET2 in transcriptional regulation by PRDM14 in ESCs, we exploited microarray analysis using total mRNA derived from Scramble, Scramble + PRDM14, Tet1/Tet2 KD, Tet1/Tet2 KD + PRDM14 mouse ESC.
Project description:Growth arrest and DNA-damage-inducible protein 45 (Gadd45) family members have been implicated in DNA demethylation in vertebrates. However, it remained unclear how they contribute to the demethylation process. Here, we demonstrate that Gadd45a promotes active DNA demethylation through thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG) which has recently been shown to excise 5-formylcytosine (5fC) and 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) generated in Ten-eleven-translocation (Tet) -initiated oxidative demethylation. The connection of Gadd45a with oxidative demethylation is evidenced by the enhanced activation of a methylated reporter gene in HEK293T cells expressing Gadd45a in combination with catalytically active TDG and Tet. Gadd45a interacts with TDG physically and increases the removal of 5fC and 5caC from genomic and transfected plasmid DNA by TDG. Knockout of both Gadd45a and Gadd45b from mouse ES cells leads to hypermethylation of specific genomic loci most of which are also targets of TDG and show 5fC enrichment in TDG-deficient cells. These observations indicate that the demethylation effect of Gadd45a is mediated by TDG activity. This finding thus unites Gadd45a with the recently defined Tet-initiated demethylation pathway.
Project description:FOXA1 is a FKHD family protein that translates epigenetic signatures at target enhancers to lineage-specific transcription and differentiation. Through genome-wide location analyses, here we show that FOXA1 expression and occupancy are, in turn, required for the maintenance of this epigenetic signature, namely DNA hypomethylation and histone 3 lysine 4 methylation. Mechanistically, this involves TET1, a 5-methylcytosine dioxygenase. We found that FOXA1 induces TET1 expression via direct binding at its cis-regulatory elements. Further, FOXA1 physically interacts with the TET1 protein through its CXXC domain. TET1 thus co-occupies FOXA1-dependent enhancers and mediates local DNA demethylation and concomitant histone 3 lysine 4 methylation, further potentiating FOXA1 recruitment. FOXA1 binding events were markedly reduced following TET1 depletion. Together, our results support that FOXA1 is not only a reader, but also a writer, of the epigenetic signatures at lineage-specific enhancers and that TET1 and FOXA1 form a feed-forward regulatory loop for enhancer activation. ChIP-Seq examination of FOXA1 binding sites in LNCaP cell, and epigenetic markers (5mC, 5hmC, H3K4me2) profiling upon TET1 depletion