Project description:Analysis of p53 binding sites using multiplex enhancer reporter assays, ChIP-seq data and RNA-seq data. Transcription factors establish and maintain the specific transcriptome of a cell by binding to genomic regulatory regions, thereby regulating the transcription of their target genes. Like many transcription factors, the DNA sequence-specific binding preferences of p53 are known. However, it remains largely unclear what distinguishes functional enhancers from other bound genomic regions that have no regulatory activity. In addition, the genome is scattered with seemingly perfect recognition sequences that remain unoccupied. To disentangle the rules of genome-wide p53 binding, we employed two complementary techniques of multiplex enhancer-reporter assays, one using barcoded reporters and the other using enhancer self-transcription. We compared the activity of more than one thousand candidate p53 enhancers under loss and gain of p53 conditions and identified several hundred high-confidence p53-responsive enhancers. Strikingly, the large majority (99%) of these target enhancers can be characterized and distinguished from negative sequences by the occurrence of a single p53 binding site. By training a machine learning classifier on these data, and integrating the resulting genome-wide predictions with fifteen publicly available human p53 ChIP-seq data sets, we identified a consensus set of 1148 functional p53 binding sites in the human genome. Unexpectedly, this direct p53 cistrome is invariably used between cell types and experimental conditions, while differences between experiments can be largely attributed to indirect non-functional binding. Our data suggest that direct p53 enhancers function in a context-independent manner and do not contain obvious combinatorial complexity of binding sites for multiple transcription factors. They represent a class of unsophisticated cell-autonomous enhancers with a single binding site, distinct from complex developmental enhancers that integrate signals from multiple transcription factors. This suggests that context-dependent regulation of p53 target genes is not encoded in the p53 enhancer, but at different upstream or downstream layers of the cell's gene regulatory network.
Project description:Analysis of p53 binding sites using multiplex enhancer reporter assays, ChIP-seq data and RNA-seq data. Transcription factors establish and maintain the specific transcriptome of a cell by binding to genomic regulatory regions, thereby regulating the transcription of their target genes. Like many transcription factors, the DNA sequence-specific binding preferences of p53 are known. However, it remains largely unclear what distinguishes functional enhancers from other bound genomic regions that have no regulatory activity. In addition, the genome is scattered with seemingly perfect recognition sequences that remain unoccupied. To disentangle the rules of genome-wide p53 binding, we employed two complementary techniques of multiplex enhancer-reporter assays, one using barcoded reporters and the other using enhancer self-transcription. We compared the activity of more than one thousand candidate p53 enhancers under loss and gain of p53 conditions and identified several hundred high-confidence p53-responsive enhancers. Strikingly, the large majority (99%) of these target enhancers can be characterized and distinguished from negative sequences by the occurrence of a single p53 binding site. By training a machine learning classifier on these data, and integrating the resulting genome-wide predictions with fifteen publicly available human p53 ChIP-seq data sets, we identified a consensus set of 1148 functional p53 binding sites in the human genome. Unexpectedly, this direct p53 cistrome is invariably used between cell types and experimental conditions, while differences between experiments can be largely attributed to indirect non-functional binding. Our data suggest that direct p53 enhancers function in a context-independent manner and do not contain obvious combinatorial complexity of binding sites for multiple transcription factors. They represent a class of unsophisticated cell-autonomous enhancers with a single binding site, distinct from complex developmental enhancers that integrate signals from multiple transcription factors. This suggests that context-dependent regulation of p53 target genes is not encoded in the p53 enhancer, but at different upstream or downstream layers of the cell's gene regulatory network.
Project description:Analysis of p53 binding sites using multiplex enhancer reporter assays, ChIP-seq data and RNA-seq data. Transcription factors establish and maintain the specific transcriptome of a cell by binding to genomic regulatory regions, thereby regulating the transcription of their target genes. Like many transcription factors, the DNA sequence-specific binding preferences of p53 are known. However, it remains largely unclear what distinguishes functional enhancers from other bound genomic regions that have no regulatory activity. In addition, the genome is scattered with seemingly perfect recognition sequences that remain unoccupied. To disentangle the rules of genome-wide p53 binding, we employed two complementary techniques of multiplex enhancer-reporter assays, one using barcoded reporters and the other using enhancer self-transcription. We compared the activity of more than one thousand candidate p53 enhancers under loss and gain of p53 conditions and identified several hundred high-confidence p53-responsive enhancers. Strikingly, the large majority (99%) of these target enhancers can be characterized and distinguished from negative sequences by the occurrence of a single p53 binding site. By training a machine learning classifier on these data, and integrating the resulting genome-wide predictions with fifteen publicly available human p53 ChIP-seq data sets, we identified a consensus set of 1148 functional p53 binding sites in the human genome. Unexpectedly, this direct p53 cistrome is invariably used between cell types and experimental conditions, while differences between experiments can be largely attributed to indirect non-functional binding. Our data suggest that direct p53 enhancers function in a context-independent manner and do not contain obvious combinatorial complexity of binding sites for multiple transcription factors. They represent a class of unsophisticated cell-autonomous enhancers with a single binding site, distinct from complex developmental enhancers that integrate signals from multiple transcription factors. This suggests that context-dependent regulation of p53 target genes is not encoded in the p53 enhancer, but at different upstream or downstream layers of the cell's gene regulatory network.
Project description:Analysis of p53 binding sites using multiplex enhancer reporter assays, ChIP-seq data and RNA-seq data. Transcription factors establish and maintain the specific transcriptome of a cell by binding to genomic regulatory regions, thereby regulating the transcription of their target genes. Like many transcription factors, the DNA sequence-specific binding preferences of p53 are known. However, it remains largely unclear what distinguishes functional enhancers from other bound genomic regions that have no regulatory activity. In addition, the genome is scattered with seemingly perfect recognition sequences that remain unoccupied. To disentangle the rules of genome-wide p53 binding, we employed two complementary techniques of multiplex enhancer-reporter assays, one using barcoded reporters and the other using enhancer self-transcription. We compared the activity of more than one thousand candidate p53 enhancers under loss and gain of p53 conditions and identified several hundred high-confidence p53-responsive enhancers. Strikingly, the large majority (99%) of these target enhancers can be characterized and distinguished from negative sequences by the occurrence of a single p53 binding site. By training a machine learning classifier on these data, and integrating the resulting genome-wide predictions with fifteen publicly available human p53 ChIP-seq data sets, we identified a consensus set of 1148 functional p53 binding sites in the human genome. Unexpectedly, this direct p53 cistrome is invariably used between cell types and experimental conditions, while differences between experiments can be largely attributed to indirect non-functional binding. Our data suggest that direct p53 enhancers function in a context-independent manner and do not contain obvious combinatorial complexity of binding sites for multiple transcription factors. They represent a class of unsophisticated cell-autonomous enhancers with a single binding site, distinct from complex developmental enhancers that integrate signals from multiple transcription factors. This suggests that context-dependent regulation of p53 target genes is not encoded in the p53 enhancer, but at different upstream or downstream layers of the cell's gene regulatory network.
Project description:The tumor suppressor p53 is a well-characterized transcription factor that can bind gene promoters and regulate target gene transcription in response to DNA damage. Recent studies, however, have revealed that p53 binding events occur predominantly within regulatory enhancer elements. The effect of p53 binding on enhancer function has not been systematically evaluated. Here, we perform a genome-scale analysis of enhancer activity from p53-bound sequences using a series of massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) coupled with the assay for transpose-accessible chromatin (ATAC-Seq). We find that the majority of p53 bound sequences examined are potent regulators of enhancer activity during the DNA damage response. Enhancer regulation requires the presence of the p53 consensus sequence and results in significant induction of target gene transcription. Surprisingly, our analyses revealed that most p53-bound enhancers are located within regions of inaccessible chromatin. Many of these enhancers display significantly increased accessibility in response to DNA damage suggesting that p53 regulates their activity, in part, by altering local chromatin environments. The recognition and activation of inaccessible enhancers may contribute to the ability of the p53 network to function across the diverse chromatin landscapes of different cell and tissue types.