Project description:Regulation of chromatin plays fundamental roles in the normal development of the brain. Haploinsufficiency of the chromatin remodeling enzyme CHD7 causes CHARGE syndrome, a genetic disorder that prominently affects the development of the cerebellum. However, how CHD7 controls chromatin states in the cerebellum remains incompletely understood. Using conditional knockout of CHD7 in granule cell precursors in the mouse cerebellum, we find that CHD7 robustly promotes the accessibility and activity of enhancers in granule cell precursors. Remarkably, in vivo profiling of genome architecture reveals that CHD7 operates locally to stimulate enhancer activation, thereby driving the expression of topologically-interacting genes. Genome and gene ontology studies show that CHD7-regulated enhancers are associated prominently with genes that control brain tissue morphogenesis. Accordingly, conditional knockout of CHD7 triggers a striking phenotype of cerebellar polymicrogyria, which we have also found in a case of CHARGE syndrome. Finally, we uncover a CHD7-dependent switch in the preferred orientation of granule cell precursor division in the developing cerebellum, providing a cellular basis for the cerebellar polymicrogyria phenotype upon loss of CHD7. Collectively, our findings define CHD7 function in the regulation of the epigenome in granule cell precursors and identify a surprising link of CHD7 to the control of cerebellar cortical morphogenesis, with potential implications for our understanding of CHARGE syndrome.
Project description:Mutations in CHD7, encoding ATP-dependent chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7, in CHARGE syndrome leads to multiple congenital anomalies including growth retardation, craniofacial malformations and neurological dysfunction. Currently, mechanisms underlying the CNS phenotypes remain poorly understood. Here, we show that Chd7 is a direct transcriptional target of oligodendrogenesis-promoting factors Olig2 and Brg1 and required for proper timing of CNS myelination and remyelination. Genome-occupancy analyses coupled with transcriptome profiling reveal that Chd7 cooperates with Sox10 to target the enhancers of key myelinogenic genes, and identify novel Chd7 target. Examination of Chd7 and Sox10 genomewide occupancy in differentiating oligodendrocytes
Project description:Mutations in CHD7, encoding ATP-dependent chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7, in CHARGE syndrome leads to multiple congenital anomalies including growth retardation, craniofacial malformations and neurological dysfunction. Currently, mechanisms underlying the CNS phenotypes remain poorly understood. Here, we show that Chd7 is a direct transcriptional target of oligodendrogenesis-promoting factors Olig2 and Brg1 and required for proper timing of CNS myelination and remyelination. Genome-occupancy analyses coupled with transcriptome profiling reveal that Chd7 cooperates with Sox10 to target the enhancers of key myelinogenic genes, and identify novel Chd7 target. 4 RNA-Seq samples from P8 spinal cords of Ctrl and Chd7 cKO mice (duplicatess, Ctrl and cKO)
Project description:Mutations in CHD7, encoding ATP-dependent chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7, in CHARGE syndrome leads to multiple congenital anomalies including growth retardation, craniofacial malformations and neurological dysfunction. Currently, mechanisms underlying the CNS phenotypes remain poorly understood. Here, we show that Chd7 is a direct transcriptional target of oligodendrogenesis-promoting factors Olig2 and Brg1 and required for proper timing of CNS myelination and remyelination. Genome-occupancy analyses coupled with transcriptome profiling reveal that Chd7 cooperates with Sox10 to target the enhancers of key myelinogenic genes, and identify novel Chd7 target.
Project description:Mutations in CHD7, encoding ATP-dependent chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7, in CHARGE syndrome leads to multiple congenital anomalies including growth retardation, craniofacial malformations and neurological dysfunction. Currently, mechanisms underlying the CNS phenotypes remain poorly understood. Here, we show that Chd7 is a direct transcriptional target of oligodendrogenesis-promoting factors Olig2 and Brg1 and required for proper timing of CNS myelination and remyelination. Genome-occupancy analyses coupled with transcriptome profiling reveal that Chd7 cooperates with Sox10 to target the enhancers of key myelinogenic genes, and identify novel Chd7 target.
Project description:Loss-of-function of the chromatin remodeler CHD7 causes CHARGE syndrome, characterized by variable penetrance and diverse abnormalities. However, establishing genotype-phenotype correlations has been challenging, as most CHD7 inactivating mutations are null alleles. Through CHD7 missense variant analysis at potential phosphorylation sites, we identified T730 (T720 in mice) as a critical residue associated with pathogenesis. Using a CHD7 T730 missense mutation (Chd7T720A) and a frameshift null allele (Chd7fs) in a mouse model, we found that Chd7fs/fs mice were non-viable, while Chd7fs/+ mice exhibited haploinsufficiency-related circling behavior. Notably, Chd7fs/T720A mice died before postnatal day 2, indicating the Chd7T720A allele is hypomorphic. Micro-CT analysis at E18.5 revealed heterozygous mice primarily exhibited hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), while homozygous mice developed both HCM and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). RNA-seq analysis of neonatal Chd7T720A/T720A hearts revealed a disrupted transcriptome, which in males and females was characterized by downregulation of mitochondrial energy metabolism genes and enrichment of ETS family transcription factor targets. We further identified GSK3β, GSK3α, HIPK1, and DYRK2 as candidate kinases for this site, suggesting a regulatory role in CHD7. This missense mutation causing developmental heart abnormalities establishes the first genotype-phenotype correlation for CHD7, and offers new insights into CHARGE syndrome pathogenesis.
Project description:CHARGE syndrome is caused by heterozygous mutations in a chromatin remodeler CHD7 and characterized by a set of malformations historically postulated to arise from defects in the neural crest formation during embryogenesis. To better delineate neural crest defects in CHARGE syndrome, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from two patients with typical syndrome manifestations, and characterized neural crest cells differentiated in vitro from these iPSCs (iPSC-NCCs). We found that expression of genes associated with cell migration was altered in CHARGE iPSC-NCCs as compared to control iPSC-NCCs. Consistently, CHARGE iPSC-NCCs showed defective delamination, migration and motility in vitro, and their transplantation in ovo revealed overall defective migratory activity in the chick embryo. Altogether, our results support the historical inference that CHARGE syndrome patients have defects in neural crest migration and provide the first successful application of patient-derived iPSCs in modeling craniofacial disorders.
Project description:CHD7 is a member of the chromodomain helicase DNA binding domain family of ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling enzymes. De novo mutation of the CHD7 gene is a major cause of CHARGE syndrome, a genetic disease characterized by a complex constellation of birth defects. To gain insight to the function of CHD7, we mapped the distribution of the CHD7 protein on chromatin using the approach of chromatin immunoprecipitation on tiled microarrays (ChIP-chip). These studies were performed in human colorectal carcinoma cells, human neuroblastoma cells, and mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells before and after differentiation into neural precursor cells. The results indicate that CHD7 localizes to discrete locations along chromatin that are specific to each cell type, and that the cell-specific binding of CHD7 correlates with a subset of histone H3 methylated at lysine 4 (H3K4me). The CHD7 sites change concomitantly with H3K4me patterns during ES cell differentiation, suggesting that H3K4me is part of the epigenetic signature that defines lineage-specific association of CHD7 with specific sites on chromatin. Furthermore, the CHD7 sites are predominantly located distal to transcription start sites, most often contained within DNase hypersensitive sites, frequently conserved, and near genes expressed at relatively high levels. These features are similar to those of gene enhancer elements, raising the possibility that CHD7 functions in enhancer mediated transcription, and that the congenital anomalies in CHARGE syndrome are due to alterations in transcription of tissue-specific genes normally regulated by CHD7 during development. ChIP-chip experiments were performed for CHD7 and H3K4 mono-,di-, and trimethylation modifications in 4 cells types: human DLD1 and SH-SY5Y; mouse ES and differentiated neural precursor cells derived from mouse ES cells. Microarrays used in these experiments tiled all or subset of ENCODE regions (in mouse, analogous ENCODE regions were assayed). At least two biological replicates were performed for each CHD7 ChIP experiment; H3K4 ChIP's were performed once in each cell type.
Project description:Heterozygous loss-of function mutations in CHD7 (chromodomain helicase DNA-binding protein 7) lead to CHARGE syndrome, a complex developmental disorder affecting craniofacial structures, peripheral nerves and several organ systems like eyes, ears, nose and heart. Recently, it was demonstrated that CHD7 is essential for the formation of multipotent migratory neural crest cells, which migrate from the neural tube to many regions of the embryo, where they differentiate into various tissues including craniofacial and heart structures. So far only few CHD7 target genes involved in neural crest cell development have been identified and the role of CHD7 in neural crest cell guidance and the regulation of mesenchymal-epithelial transition is unknown. Therefore, we undertook a genome-wide microarray expression analysis on wild-type and CHD7 deficient (Chd7Whi/+ and Chd7Whi/Whi) mouse embryos at day 9.5, the time point of neural crest cell migration. We identified 98 genes showing greater than two fold differences in expression (log2 fold-change) and a P-value to false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05 between wild-type and Chd7Whi/Whi embryos. Interestingly, many misregulated genes are involved in neural crest cell and axon guidance like semaphorins and ephrin receptors. By performing knockdown experiments for Chd7 and one of its target genes, namely semaphorin3a in Xenopus laevis embryos, we could show abnormalities in the migration of neural crest cells in vivo. Additionally, we detected non-synonymous SEMA3A variations in 3 out of 45 CHD7 negative CHARGE patients suggesting a role for SEMA3A in the pathogenesis of CHARGE syndrome. To identify genes that are affected by the absence of functional Chd7 at the time point of neural crest cell migration, the expression profiles of E9.5 wild-type, Chd7Whi/+ and Chd7Whi/Whi female mouse embryos were compared by whole-genome microarray analysis. Mouse embryos of the same sex were used to avoid sex-dependent gene expression effects. We performed microarray analysis by using the Agilent-026655 Whole Mouse Genome Microarray 4x44K v2 (Agilent) on four biological replicates from each group.
Project description:Gene expression changes were measured between mouse ES cells of three genotypes: WT Chd7, Heterzygous Chd7 Null, Homozygous Chd7 Null. The hypothesis being tested was that CHD7, a chromatin remodeling protein, functions as a transcriptional regulator. This experiment was performed to detect gene targets of CHD7-mediated regulation. We report the genome-wide binding profile of CHD7, the protein implicated in CHARGE syndrome, in mouse ES cells using ChIP-Seq technology. Combining these data with other genomic datasets, we discover CHD7 to colocalize with other transcription factors including Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, and p300 at gene enhancer elements to regulate ES cell specific gene expression. Chd7 wildtype, heterozygous, and homozygous ES cells derived from preimplantation embryos were grown on feeder cells and total RNA was isolated using Trizol. The ratio of ES to feeder cells was estimated at 5:1. ChIP sequencing of CHD7 and p300 in mouse ES cells