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Histone modifications rather than the novel regional centromeres of Zymoseptoria tritici distinguish core and accessory chromosomes.

ABSTRACT: Supernumerary chromosomes have been found in many organisms. In fungi, these "accessory" or "dispensable" chromosomes are present at different frequencies in populations and are usually characterized by higher repetitive DNA content and lower gene density when compared to the core chromosomes. In the reference strain of the wheat pathogen, Zymoseptoria tritici, eight discrete accessory chromosomes have been found. So far, no functional role has been assigned to these chromosomes; however, they have existed as separate entities in the karyotypes of Zymoseptoria species over evolutionary time. In this study, we addressed what-if anything-distinguishes the chromatin of accessory chromosomes from core chromosomes. We used chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with high-throughput sequencing ("ChIP-seq") of DNA associated with the centromere-specific histone H3, CENP-A (CenH3), to identify centromeric DNA, and ChIP-seq with antibodies against dimethylated H3K4, trimethylated H3K9 and trimethylated H3K27 to determine the relative distribution and proportion of euchromatin, obligate and facultative heterochromatin, respectively.Centromeres of the eight accessory chromosomes have the same sequence composition and structure as centromeres of the 13 core chromosomes and they are of similar length. Unlike those of most other fungi, Z. tritici centromeres are not composed entirely of repetitive DNA; some centromeres contain only unique DNA sequences, and bona fide expressed genes are located in regions enriched with CenH3. By fluorescence microscopy, we showed that centromeres of Z. tritici do not cluster into a single chromocenter during interphase. We found dramatically higher enrichment of H3K9me3 and H3K27me3 on the accessory chromosomes, consistent with the twofold higher proportion of repetitive DNA and poorly transcribed genes. In contrast, no single histone modification tested here correlated with the distribution of centromeric nucleosomes.All centromeres are similar in length and composed of a mixture of unique and repeat DNA, and most contain actively transcribed genes. Centromeres, subtelomeric regions or telomere repeat length cannot account for the differences in transfer fidelity between core and accessory chromosomes, but accessory chromosomes are greatly enriched in nucleosomes with H3K27 trimethylation. Genes on accessory chromosomes appear to be silenced by trimethylation of H3K9 and H3K27.

SUBMITTER: Schotanus K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4589918 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Histone modifications rather than the novel regional centromeres of Zymoseptoria tritici distinguish core and accessory chromosomes.

Schotanus Klaas K Soyer Jessica L JL Connolly Lanelle R LR Grandaubert Jonathan J Happel Petra P Smith Kristina M KM Freitag Michael M Stukenbrock Eva H EH

Epigenetics & chromatin 20151001

<h4>Background</h4>Supernumerary chromosomes have been found in many organisms. In fungi, these "accessory" or "dispensable" chromosomes are present at different frequencies in populations and are usually characterized by higher repetitive DNA content and lower gene density when compared to the core chromosomes. In the reference strain of the wheat pathogen, Zymoseptoria tritici, eight discrete accessory chromosomes have been found. So far, no functional role has been assigned to these chromosom ...[more]

PMID: 26430472

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Project description:The fungal wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici possesses a large complement of accessory chromosomes showing presence/absence polymorphism among isolates. These chromosomes encode hundreds of genes; however, their functional role and why the chromosomes have been maintained over long evolutionary times are so far not known. In this study, we addressed the functional relevance of eight accessory chromosomes in reference isolate IPO323. We induced chromosome losses by inhibiting the ?-tubulin assembly during mitosis using carbendazim and generated several independent isogenic strains, each lacking one of the accessory chromosomes. We confirmed chromosome losses by electrophoretic karyotyping and whole-genome sequencing. To assess the importance of the individual chromosomes during host infection, we performed in planta assays comparing disease development results in wild-type and chromosome mutant strains. Loss of the accessory chromosomes 14, 16, 18, 19, and 21 resulted in increased virulence on wheat cultivar Runal but not on cultivars Obelisk, Titlis, and Riband. Moreover, some accessory chromosomes affected the switch from biotrophy to necrotrophy as strains lacking accessory chromosomes 14, 18, 19, and 21 showed a significantly earlier onset of necrosis than the wild type on the Runal cultivar. In general, we observed that the timing of the lifestyle switch affects the fitness of Z. tritici Taking the results together, this study was the first to use a forward-genetics approach to demonstrate a cultivar-dependent functional relevance of the accessory chromosomes of Z. tritici during host infection.IMPORTANCEZymoseptoria tritici is a prominent fungal pathogen of wheat of worldwide distribution. This fungus shows a remarkable genome organization, with a large number of chromosomes that are present in only some isolates and therefore considered to be "accessory" chromosomes. To date, the function of these accessory chromosomes in Z. tritici has been unknown, although their maintenance in the species over evolutionary times suggests a functional relevance. Here we deleted whole accessory chromosomes to test the effect of these chromosomes on host specificity and virulence of the fungus. We show for the first time that some accessory chromosomes of Z. tritici affect the fitness of the fungus during host infection in a cultivar-dependent manner. These results show that the accessory chromosomes encode host-specific virulence determinants having a negative effect on fitness. Understanding the population dynamic of the accessory chromosomes and the molecular interaction of pathogen and plant traits is crucial to improve wheat-breeding strategies.

Project description:The centromere is defined by the presence of a centromere-specific histone H3 variant, CENH3. Establishment and maintenance of the centromeric chromatin (CEN chromatin) is determined by poorly understood epigenetic mechanisms. Interestingly, CEN chromatin in several eukaryotes showed euchromatic characteristics although being embedded within pericentromeric heterochromatin. Specifically, H3K4me2 appeared to be a unique histone modification mark associated with animal centromeres. We developed a genomic tiling array for four fully sequenced rice centromeres. A ChIP-chip approach was used to study the patterns of several euchromatic histone modification marks, including H3K4me2, H3K4me3, H3K36me3, and H3K4K9a, associated with rice centromeres. We demonstrate that the CENH3 subdomains within the four centromeres are depleted with the four histone H3 marks. The vast majority of the four histone marks were associated with the genes located in the H3 subdomains within the centromeric cores. Genes in the centromeres showed similar histone modification patterns as those located outside of the centromeres. Thus, the euchromatic characteristics of rice CEN chromatin are trademarks of the transcribed sequences embedded in the H3 subdomains of the centromeres. We propose that the constitutively expressed genes located in rice centromeres may provide a barrier for loading of CENH3 into the H3 subdomains. The separation of CENH3 into the H3 subdomains is favorable for the three dimensional structure and its associated function of rice centromeres. We developed a genomic tiling array that covers four rice centromeres (Cen4, Cen5, Cen7, and Cen8) using the NimbleGen 3x720K array based on the NimbleGen HD2 platform. We used four antibodies (H3K4me3, H3K4me2, H3K36me3, H3K4K9ac) to perform ChIP-chip experiments. ChIP was conducted using leaf tissue from two-week old rice seedlings. We have 3 biological replicates for each antibody and 6 technological replicates of hybridization with position exchange on the array. Thus, each histone modification included 18 hybridization experiments.

Dataset Information

Histone modifications rather than the novel regional centromeres of Zymoseptoria tritici distinguish core and accessory chromosomes.

Publications

Histone modifications rather than the novel regional centromeres of Zymoseptoria tritici distinguish core and accessory chromosomes.

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