Project description:Distal enhancers characterized by H3K4me1 mark play critical roles in developmental and transcriptional programs. However, potential roles of specific distal regulatory elements in regulating RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) promoter-proximal pause release remain poorly investigated. Here we report that a unique cohort of jumonji C domain-containing protein 6 (JMJD6) and bromodomain-containing protein 4 (Brd4) co-bound distal enhancers, termed anti-pause enhancers (A-PEs), regulate promoter-proximal pause release of a large subset of transcription units via long-range interactions. Brd4-dependent JMJD6 recruitment on A-PEs mediates erasure of H4R3me2(s), which is directly read by 7SK snRNA, and decapping/demethylation of 7SK snRNA, ensuring the dismissal of the 7SKsnRNA/HEXIM inhibitory complex. The interactions of both JMJD6 and Brd4 with the P-TEFb complex permit its activation and pause release of regulated coding genes. The functions of JMJD6/ Brd4-associated dual histone and RNA demethylase activity on anti-pause enhancers have intriguing implications for these proteins in development, homeostasis and disease. All Gro-seq(s) were designed to reveal the transcriptional targets of JMJD6 and Brd4, and assess the role of JMJD6 and Brd4 in Pol II promoter-proximal pause release. All ChIP-seq(s) were designed to understand the unique features, associated molecular mechanisms and functions of the anti-pause enhancers (A-PEs) discovered in the current study.
Project description:In vitro studies identified various factors including P-TEFb, SEC, SPT6, PAF1, DSIF, and NELF functioning at different stages of transcription elongation driven by RNA polymerase II (RNA Pol II). What remains unclear is how these factors cooperatively regulate pause/release and productive elongation in the context of living cells. Using an acute 5 protein-depletion approach, prominent release and a subsequent increase in mature transcripts, whereas long genes fail to yield mature transcripts due to a loss of processivity. Mechanistically, loss of SPT6 results in loss of PAF1 complex (PAF1C) from RNA Pol II, leading to NELF-bound RNA Pol II release into the gene bodies. Furthermore, SPT6 and/or PAF1 depletion impairs heat shock-induced pausing, pointing to a role for SPT6 in regulating RNA Pol II pause/release through the recruitment of PAF1C during the early elongation.
Project description:Distal enhancers characterized by H3K4me1 mark play critical roles in developmental and transcriptional programs. However, potential roles of specific distal regulatory elements in regulating RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) promoter-proximal pause release remain poorly investigated. Here we report that a unique cohort of jumonji C domain-containing protein 6 (JMJD6) and bromodomain-containing protein 4 (Brd4) co-bound distal enhancers, termed anti-pause enhancers (A-PEs), regulate promoter-proximal pause release of a large subset of transcription units via long-range interactions. Brd4-dependent JMJD6 recruitment on A-PEs mediates erasure of H4R3me2(s), which is directly read by 7SK snRNA, and decapping/demethylation of 7SK snRNA, ensuring the dismissal of the 7SKsnRNA/HEXIM inhibitory complex. The interactions of both JMJD6 and Brd4 with the P-TEFb complex permit its activation and pause release of regulated coding genes. The functions of JMJD6/ Brd4-associated dual histone and RNA demethylase activity on anti-pause enhancers have intriguing implications for these proteins in development, homeostasis and disease.
Project description:Macrophages can adjust their phenotype and function in response to environmental cues, such as encountering apoptotic cells or pathogens. After tissue injury or inflammation, macrophages must successively engulf and process multiple apoptotic corpses (via efferocytosis) to achieve tissue homeostasis. How macrophages may rapidly adapt their transcription to achieve continued corpse uptake is incompletely understood. Transcriptional pause/release is an evolutionarily conserved process wherein RNA polymerase II (Pol II), after initiating transcription for 20-60 nucleotides, gets ‘paused’ for seconds to hours; paused Pol II then gets ‘released’ to complete transcription to make full-length mRNA. Here we show that macrophages, within minutes of corpse encounter, use transcriptional pause/release as a mechanism to unleash a rapid transcriptional response. For human and murine macrophages, the Pol II pause/release was crucial for continued efferocytosis of corpses in vitro and in vivo. Interestingly, blocking Pol II pause/release did not impede FcR-mediated phagocytosis, yeast uptake, or bacterial phagocytosis. Integrating data from three complementary genomic approaches of PRO-seq, RNA-seq, and ATAC-seq on efferocytic macrophages at different time points, we found that Pol II pause/release controls expression of select transcription factors and downstream target genes. Further mechanistic studies on transcription factor Egr3, one of the genes prominently affected by pause/release, uncovered Egr3-related reprogramming of macrophage genes involved in cytoskeleton and corpse processing. Via lysosomal probes and a newly designed genetic fluorescent reporter, we identify a key role for pause/release in phagosome acidification during efferocytosis. Further, microglia from egr3-deficient zebrafish embryos displayed reduced phagocytosis of apoptotic neurons and fewer maturing endosomes, supporting a defect in corpse processing. Collectively, these data advance a novel concept that macrophages use Polymerase II pause/release as a mechanism to rapidly alter their transcriptional programs for efficient processing of the ingested apoptotic corpse and for successive efferocytosis.
Project description:Reactivation of the pluripotency network during somatic cell reprogramming by exogenous transcription factors involves chromatin remodeling and the recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) to target loci. Here, we report that Pol II is engaged at pluripotency promoters in reprogramming but remains paused and inefficiently released. We also show that bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) stimulates productive transcriptional elongation of pluripotency genes by dissociating the pause release factor P-TEFb from an inactive complex containing HEXIM1. Consequently, BRD4 overexpression enhances reprogramming efficiency and HEXIM1 suppresses it, whereas Brd4 and Hexim1 knockdown do the opposite. We further demonstrate that the reprogramming factor KLF4 helps recruit P-TEFb to pluripotency promoters. Our work thus provides a mechanism for explaining the reactivation of pluripotency genes in reprogramming and unveils an unanticipated role for KLF4 in transcriptional pause release. Pol II ChIP-seq for MEFs, ESCs and bulk populations of OSKM reprogramming intermediates at two time points.
Project description:Heart failure is driven by the interplay between master regulatory transcription factors and dynamic alterations in chromatin structure. Coordinate activation of developmental, inflammatory, fibrotic and growth regulators underlies the hallmark phenotypes of pathologic cardiac hypertrophy and contractile failure. While transactivation in this context is known to be associated with recruitment of histone acetyl-transferase enzymes and local chromatin hyperacetylation, the role of epigenetic reader proteins in cardiac biology is unknown. We therefore undertook a first study of acetyl-lysine reader proteins, or bromodomains, in heart failure. Using a chemical genetic approach, we establish a central role for BET-family bromodomain proteins in gene control during the evolution of heart failure. BET inhibition suppresses cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in a cell-autonomous manner, confirmed by RNA interference in vitro. Following both pressure overload and neurohormonal stimulation, BET inhibition potently attenuates pathologic cardiac remodeling in vivo. Integrative transcriptional and epigenomic analyses reveal that BET proteins function mechanistically as pause-release factors critical to activation of canonical master regulators and effectors that are central to heart failure pathogenesis. Specifically, BET bromodomain inhibition in mice abrogates pathology-associated pause release and transcriptional elongation, thereby preventing activation of cardiac transcriptional pathways relevant to the gene expression profile of failing human hearts. This study implicates epigenetic readers in cardiac biology and identifies BET co-activator proteins as therapeutic targets in heart failure. ChIP-Seq of mouse heart tissues from mice induced with heart failure and treated with JQ1 BET bromodomain inhibitor
Project description:Macrophages can adjust their phenotype and function in response to environmental cues, such as encountering apoptotic cells or pathogens. After tissue injury or inflammation, macrophages must successively engulf and process multiple apoptotic corpses (via efferocytosis) to achieve tissue homeostasis. How macrophages may rapidly adapt their transcription to achieve continued corpse uptake is incompletely understood. Transcriptional pause/release is an evolutionarily conserved process wherein RNA polymerase II (Pol II), after initiating transcription for 20-60 nucleotides, gets ‘paused’ for seconds to hours; paused Pol II then gets ‘released’ to complete transcription to make full-length mRNA. Here we show that macrophages, within minutes of corpse encounter, use transcriptional pause/release as a mechanism to unleash a rapid transcriptional response. For human and murine macrophages, the Pol II pause/release was crucial for continued efferocytosis of corpses in vitro and in vivo. Interestingly, blocking Pol II pause/release did not impede FcR-mediated phagocytosis, yeast uptake, or bacterial phagocytosis. Integrating data from three complementary genomic approaches of PRO-seq, RNA-seq, and ATAC-seq on efferocytic macrophages at different time points, we found that Pol II pause/release controls expression of select transcription factors and downstream target genes. Further mechanistic studies on transcription factor Egr3, one of the genes prominently affected by pause/release, uncovered Egr3-related reprogramming of macrophage genes involved in cytoskeleton and corpse processing. Via lysosomal probes and a newly designed genetic fluorescent reporter, we identify a key role for pause/release in phagosome acidification during efferocytosis. Further, microglia from egr3-deficient zebrafish embryos displayed reduced phagocytosis of apoptotic neurons and fewer maturing endosomes, supporting a defect in corpse processing. Collectively, these data advance a novel concept that macrophages use Polymerase II pause/release as a mechanism to rapidly alter their transcriptional programs for efficient processing of the ingested apoptotic corpse and for successive efferocytosis.
Project description:Macrophages can adjust their phenotype and function in response to environmental cues, such as encountering apoptotic cells or pathogens. After tissue injury or inflammation, macrophages must successively engulf and process multiple apoptotic corpses (via efferocytosis) to achieve tissue homeostasis. How macrophages may rapidly adapt their transcription to achieve continued corpse uptake is incompletely understood. Transcriptional pause/release is an evolutionarily conserved process wherein RNA polymerase II (Pol II), after initiating transcription for 20-60 nucleotides, gets ‘paused’ for seconds to hours; paused Pol II then gets ‘released’ to complete transcription to make full-length mRNA. Here we show that macrophages, within minutes of corpse encounter, use transcriptional pause/release as a mechanism to unleash a rapid transcriptional response. For human and murine macrophages, the Pol II pause/release was crucial for continued efferocytosis of corpses in vitro and in vivo. Interestingly, blocking Pol II pause/release did not impede FcR-mediated phagocytosis, yeast uptake, or bacterial phagocytosis. Integrating data from three complementary genomic approaches of PRO-seq, RNA-seq, and ATAC-seq on efferocytic macrophages at different time points, we found that Pol II pause/release controls expression of select transcription factors and downstream target genes. Further mechanistic studies on transcription factor Egr3, one of the genes prominently affected by pause/release, uncovered Egr3-related reprogramming of macrophage genes involved in cytoskeleton and corpse processing. Via lysosomal probes and a newly designed genetic fluorescent reporter, we identify a key role for pause/release in phagosome acidification during efferocytosis. Further, microglia from egr3-deficient zebrafish embryos displayed reduced phagocytosis of apoptotic neurons and fewer maturing endosomes, supporting a defect in corpse processing. Collectively, these data advance a novel concept that macrophages use Polymerase II pause/release as a mechanism to rapidly alter their transcriptional programs for efficient processing of the ingested apoptotic corpse and for successive efferocytosis.
Project description:In vitro studies identified various factors including P-TEFb, SEC, SPT6, PAF1, DSIF, and NELF functioning at different stages of transcription elongation driven by RNA polymerase II (RNA Pol II). What remains unclear is how these factors cooperatively regulate pause/release and productive elongation in the context of living cells. Using an acute protein-depletion approach, we report that SPT6 depletion results in release of paused RNA Pol II. Short genes demonstrate a prominent release and a subsequent increase in mature transcripts, whereas long genes fail to yield mature transcripts due to a loss of processivity. Unexpectedly, the recruitment of PAF1 complex (PAF1C) to RNA Pol II fails upon SPT6 depletion, leading to the release of NELF-bound RNA Pol II into the gene bodies. Furthermore, SPT6 depletion impairs heat shock-induced pausing, pointing to a role for SPT6 in regulating RNA Pol II pause-release through PAF1C recruitment and NELF removal during the early elongation.
Project description:Reactivation of the pluripotency network during somatic cell reprogramming by exogenous transcription factors involves chromatin remodeling and the recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) to target loci. Here, we report that Pol II is engaged at pluripotency promoters in reprogramming but remains paused and inefficiently released. We also show that bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) stimulates productive transcriptional elongation of pluripotency genes by dissociating the pause release factor P-TEFb from an inactive complex containing HEXIM1. Consequently, BRD4 overexpression enhances reprogramming efficiency and HEXIM1 suppresses it, whereas Brd4 and Hexim1 knockdown do the opposite. We further demonstrate that the reprogramming factor KLF4 helps recruit P-TEFb to pluripotency promoters. Our work thus provides a mechanism for explaining the reactivation of pluripotency genes in reprogramming and unveils an unanticipated role for KLF4 in transcriptional pause release. Refer to individual Series