Project description:The Arabidopsis ROS1/DEMETER family of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) DNA glycosylases are the first genetically characterized DNA demethylases in eukaryotes. However, the features of ROS1-targeted genomic loci are not well understood. In this study, we characterized ROS1 target loci in Arabidopsis Col-0 and C24 ecotypes. We found that ROS1 preferentially targets transposable elements (TEs) and intergenic regions. Compared with most TEs, ROS1-targeted TEs are closer to protein coding genes, suggesting that ROS1 may prevent DNA methylation spreading from TEs to nearby genes. ROS1-targeted TEs are specifically enriched for H3K18Ac and H3K27me3, and depleted of H3K27me and H3K9me2. Importantly, we identified thousands of previously unknown RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) targets following depletion of ROS1, suggesting that ROS1 strongly antagonizes RdDM at these loci. In addition, we show that ROS1 also antagonizes RdDM-independent DNA methylation at some loci. Our results provide important insights into the genome-wide targets of ROS1 and the crosstalk between DNA methylation and ROS1-mediated active DNA demethylation.
Project description:Active DNA demethylation has emerged as an important regulatory process of plant and mammalian immunity. However, very little is known about the mechanisms by which active demethylation controls transcriptional immune reprogramming and disease resistance. Here, we first show that the Arabidopsis active demethylase ROS1 promotes basal resistance towards Pseudomonas syringae by antagonizing RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM). Furthermore, we demonstrate that ROS1 facilitates the flagellin-triggered induction of the disease resistance gene RMG1 by limiting RdDM at the 3' boundary of a transposable element (TE)-derived repeat embedded in its promoter. We further identify flagellin-responsive ROS1 putative primary targets and show that at a subset of promoters, ROS1 erases methylation at discrete regions exhibiting WRKY transcription factors (TFs) binding. In particular, we demonstrate that ROS1 removes methylation at the orphan immune receptor RLP43 promoter, to ensure DNA binding of WRKY TFs. Finally, we show that ROS1-directed demethylation of RMG1 and RLP43 promoters is causal for both flagellin responsiveness of these genes and for basal resistance. Overall, these findings significantly advance our understanding of how active demethylases shape transcriptional immune reprogramming to enable antibacterial resistance.
Project description:BackgroundA number of vertebrate highly conserved elements (HCEs) have been detected and their genomic interval distances have been reported to be more conserved than protein coding genes among mammalian genomes. A characteristic of the human - non-mammalian comparisons is a bimodal distribution of relative distance difference of conserved consecutive HCE pairs; and it is difficult to attribute such profile to a random assortment. We therefore undertook an analysis of the human genomic regions confined by consecutive HCE pairs common to eight genomes (human, mouse, rat, chicken, frog, zebrafish, tetradon and fugu).ResultsAmong HCE pairs, we found that some consistently preserve highly conserved interval distance among genomes while others have relatively low distance conservation. Using a partition method, we detected two groups of inter-HCE regions (IHRs) with distinct distance conservation pattern in vertebrate genomes: IHR1s that are bordered by HCE pairs with relative small distance variation, and IHR2s with larger distance difference values. Compared to random background, annotated repeat sequences are significantly less frequent in IHR1s than IHR2s, which reflects a correlation between repeat sequences and the length expansion of IHRs. Both groups of IHRs are unexpectedly enriched in human indel (i.e. insertion and deletion) polymorphism-variations than random background. The correlation between the percentage of conserved sequence and human IHR length was stronger for IHR1 than IHR2. Both groups of IHRs are significantly enriched for CpG islands.ConclusionThe data suggest that subsets of HCE pairs may undergo different evolutionary paths in light of their genomic distance conservation, and that sets of genomic regions pertain to HCEs, as well as the region in which HCEs reside, should be treated as integrated domains.
Project description:SWI/SNF-type chromatin remodelers, such as BRAHMA (BRM), and H3K27 demethylases both have active roles in regulating gene expression at the chromatin level, but how they are recruited to specific genomic sites remains largely unknown. Here we show that RELATIVE OF EARLY FLOWERING 6 (REF6), a plant-unique H3K27 demethylase, targets genomic loci containing a CTCTGYTY motif via its zinc-finger (ZnF) domains and facilitates the recruitment of BRM. Genome-wide analyses showed that REF6 colocalizes with BRM at many genomic sites with the CTCTGYTY motif. Loss of REF6 results in decreased BRM occupancy at BRM-REF6 co-targets. Furthermore, REF6 directly binds to the CTCTGYTY motif in vitro, and deletion of the motif from a target gene renders it inaccessible to REF6 in vivo. Finally, we show that, when its ZnF domains are deleted, REF6 loses its genomic targeting ability. Thus, our work identifies a new genomic targeting mechanism for an H3K27 demethylase and demonstrates its key role in recruiting the BRM chromatin remodeler.
Project description:Recent integrative epigenome analyses highlight the importance of functionally distinct chromatin states for accurate cell function. How these states are established and maintained is a matter of intense investigation. Here, we present evidence for DNA damage as an unexpected means to shape a protective chromatin environment at regions of recurrent replication stress (RS). Upon aberrant fork stalling, DNA damage signaling and concomitant H2AX phosphorylation coordinate the FACT-dependent deposition of macroH2A1.2, a histone variant that promotes DNA repair by homologous recombination (HR). MacroH2A1.2, in turn, facilitates the accumulation of the tumor suppressor and HR effector BRCA1 at replication forks to protect from RS-induced DNA damage. Consequently, replicating primary cells steadily accrue macroH2A1.2 at fragile regions, whereas macroH2A1.2 loss in these cells triggers DNA damage signaling-dependent senescence, a hallmark of RS. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that recurrent DNA damage contributes to the chromatin landscape to ensure the epigenomic integrity of dividing cells.
Project description:The integrity of the genome is continuously challenged by both endogenous and exogenous DNA damaging agents. Neurons, due to their post-mitotic state, high metabolism, and longevity are particularly prone to the accumulation of DNA lesions. Indeed, DNA damage has been suggested as a major contributor to both age-associated neurodegenerative diseases and acute neurological injury. The DNA damage response is a key factor in maintaining genome integrity. It relies on highly dynamic posttranslational modifications of the chromatin and DNA repair proteins to allow signaling, access, and repair of the lesion. Drugs that modulate the activity of the enzymes responsible for these modifications have emerged as attractive therapeutic compounds to treat neurodegeneration. In this review, we discuss the role of DNA double-strand breaks and abnormal chromatin modification patterns in a range of neurodegenerative conditions, and the chromatin modifiers that might ameliorate them. Finally, we suggest that understanding the epigenetic modifications specific to neuronal DNA repair is crucial for the development of efficient neurotherapeutic strategies.
Project description:DNA methylation is typically regarded as a repressive epigenetic mark for gene expression. Genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in plants are dynamically regulated by the opposing activities of DNA methylation and demethylation reactions. In Arabidopsis, a DNA methylation monitoring sequence (MEMS) in the promoter of the DNA demethylase gene ROS1 functions as a methylstat that senses these opposing activities and regulates genome DNA methylation levels by adjusting ROS1 expression. How DNA methylation in the MEMS region promotes ROS1 expression is not known. Here, we show that several Su(var)3-9 homologs (SUVHs) can sense DNA methylation levels at the MEMS region and function redundantly to promote ROS1 expression. The SUVHs bind to the MEMS region, and the extent of binding is correlated with the methylation level of the MEMS. Mutations in the SUVHs lead to decreased ROS1 expression, causing DNA hypermethylation at more than one thousand genomic regions. Thus, the SUVHs function to mediate the activation of gene transcription by DNA methylation.
Project description:DNA methylation is related closely to sequence contexts and chromatin modifications; however, their potential differences in different genomic regions across cell types remain largely unexplored. We used publicly available genome-scale DNA methylation and histone modification profiles to study their relationships among different genomic regions in human embryonic stem cells (H1), H1-derived neuronal progenitor cultured cells (NPC), and foetal fibroblasts (IMR90) using the Random forests classifier. Histone modifications achieved high accuracy in modelling DNA methylation patterns on a genome scale in the three cell types. The inclusion of sequence features helped improve accuracy only in non-promoter regions of IMR90. Furthermore, the top six feature combinations obtained by mean decrease Gini were important indicators of different DNA methylation patterns, suggesting that H3K4me2 and H3K4me3 are important indicators that are independent of genomic regions and cell types. H3K9me3 was IMR90-specific and exhibited a genomic region-specific correlation with DNA methylation. Variations of essential chromatin modification signals may effectively discriminate changes of DNA methylation between H1 and IMR90. Genes with different co-variations of epigenetic marks exhibited genomic region-specific biological relevance. This study provides an integrated strategy to identify systematically essential epigenetic and genetic elements of genomic region-specific and cell type-specific DNA methylation patterns.
Project description:More than a thousand proteins are thought to contribute to mammalian chromatin and its regulation, but our understanding of the genomic occupancy and function of most of these proteins is limited. Here we describe an approach, which we call "chromatin proteomic profiling," to identify proteins associated with genomic regions marked by specifically modified histones. We used ChIP-MS to identify proteins associated with genomic regions marked by histones modified at specific lysine residues, including H3K27ac, H3K4me3, H3K79me2, H3K36me3, H3K9me3, and H4K20me3, in ES cells. We identified 332 known and 114 novel proteins associated with these histone-marked genomic segments. Many of the novel candidates have been implicated in various diseases, and their chromatin association may provide clues to disease mechanisms. More than 100 histone modifications have been described, so similar chromatin proteomic profiling studies should prove to be valuable for identifying many additional chromatin-associated proteins in a broad spectrum of cell types.