Project description:Enzymatic erasure of DNA methylation in mammals involves iterative 5-methylcytosine (5mC) oxidation by the ten-eleven translocation (TET) family of DNA dioxygenase proteins. As the most abundant form of oxidized 5mC, the prevailing model considers 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) as a key nexus in active DNA demethylation that can either indirectly facilitate replication-dependent depletion of 5mC by inhibiting maintenance DNA methylation machinery (UHRF1/DNMT1), or directly be iteratively oxidized to 5-formylcytosine (5fC) and 5-carboxycytosine (5caC) and restored to cytosine (C) through thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG)-mediated 5fC/5caC excision repair. In proliferative somatic cells, to what extent TET-dependent removal of 5mC entails indirect DNA demethylation via 5hmC-induced replication-dependent dilution or direct iterative conversion of 5hmC to 5fC/5caC is unclear. Here we leverage a catalytic processivity stalling variant of human TET1 (TET1.var: T1662E) to decouple the stepwise generation of 5hmC from subsequent 5fC/5caC generation, excision and repair. By using a CRISPR/dCas9-based epigenome-editing platform, we demonstrate that 5fC/5caC excision repair (by wild-type TET1, TET1.wt), but not 5hmC generation alone (by TET1.var), is requisite for robust restoration of unmodified cytosines and reversal of somatic silencing of the methylation-sensitive, germline-specific RHOXF2B gene promoter. Furthermore, integrated whole-genome multi-modal epigenetic sequencing reveals that hemi-hydroxymethylated CpG dyads predominantly resist replication-dependent depletion of 5mC on the opposing strand in TET1.var-expressing cells. Notably, TET1.var-mediated 5hmC generation is sufficient to induce similar levels of differential gene expression (compared to TET1.wt) without inducing major changes in unmodified cytosine profiles across the genome. Our study suggests 5hmC alone plays a limited role in driving replication-dependent DNA demethylation in the presence of functional DNMT1/UHRF1 mechanisms, but can regulate gene expression as a bona fide epigenetic mark in proliferative somatic cells.

Project description:Methylation of cytosine in DNA (5mC) is an important epigenetic mark that is involved in the regulation of genome function. During early embryonic development in mammals, the DNA methylation landscape is dynamically reprogrammed in part through active demethylation. Recent advances have identified key players involved in active demethylation pathways, including oxidation of 5mC to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) and 5-formylcytosine (5fC) by the TET family of enzymes and excision of 5fC by the base excision repair enzyme thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG). Here, we provide the first genome-wide distribution map of 5fC in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and evaluate potential roles for 5fC in differentiation. Our method exploits the unique reactivity of 5fC to link a biotin tag for pulldown and high-throughput sequencing. Genome-wide mapping revealed 5fC enrichment in CpG islands (CGIs) of promoters and exons. CGI promoters in which 5fC was relatively more enriched than 5mC or 5hmC corresponded to transcriptionally active genes. Accordingly, 5fC-rich promoters had elevated H3K4me3 levels, a histone mark associated with active transcription, and were frequently bound by RNA Polymerase II. Downregulation of TDG led to accumulation of 5fC in CGIs in ES cells, which correlates with increased methylation in these genomic regions during differentiation and in mouse embryonic fibroblasts derived from TDG knockout embryos. Collectively, our data suggest that 5fC plays a role in epigenetic reprogramming. The formation and removal of this cytosine modification are confined to specific genomic regions, which are in part controlled by TDG. Notably, 5fC excision in ES cells is necessary for the correct establishment of CGI methylation patterns during differentiation, and hence, for appropriate patterns of gene expression during development. We devised a method to map 5-formylcytosine (5fC) by linking a biotin tag to 5fC for pulldown and high-throughput sequencing. We mapped 5fC in the following samples of mouse embryonic stem cells (J1): Wild-type ES cells (two replicates); ES cells transfected with siRNA targeting TDG (two replicates); ES cells transfected with non-targeting siRNA (two replicates). One genomic input library was also sequenced to detect and correct biases in fragment enrichment.

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Active and passive mechanisms of 5mC and 5hmC removal in human T lymphocytes

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