Project description:FOXL2 is a transcription factor essential for female fertility, expressed in somatic cells of the ovary, notably granulosa cells. In the mouse, Foxl2 deletion leads to partial sex reversal postnatally, with mutants developing dysgenic ovaries devoid of oocytes. However, deletion of the gene in 8-week-old females leads to granulosa to Sertoli cell transdifferentiation and gonadal sex reversal. We hypothesise that different outcomes of Foxl2 deletion in embryonic versus adult ovary may depend on a different role played by FOXL2 across ovarian development. Therefore, in this study, we take a multi-omics approach to characterise the dynamics of gene expression and chromatin accessibility changes in purified murine granulosa cells across key developmental stages (E14.5, 1 and 8 weeks). We coupled these analyses with genome wide identification of FOXL2 target genes and on-chromatin interacting partners by ChIP-SICAP to reconstruct the gene regulatory networks underpinned by this essential transcription factor and to discover novel players. We found that, in the embryonic ovary, FOXL2 interacts with factors important for early stages of gonadal development, such as GATA4 and WT1, whilst postnatally it interacts with factors regulating primordial follicle activation, such as NR5A2, and with factors regulating steroidogenesis including AR and ESR2. Integration of chromatin landscape dynamics with gene expression changes and FOXL2 binding sites analysis revealed that its critical role in ovarian cell fate maintenance goes beyond repression of the Sertoli-specific gene Sox9. Our chromatome analysis revealed also that FOXL2 interacts with several proteins involved in chromatin remodelling, DNA repair, splicing and gene repression. We identified a FOXL2 interactor with a role in primordial follicle activation, Ubiquitin specific protease 7 (USP7). We showed that conditional deletion of this gene in granulosa cells leads to a blockage of primordial follicle activation, impairs ovary development and leads to complete sterility. In summary, in this study we identified target genes dynamically regulated by FOXL2 across ovarian development including known and newly identified FOXL2 targets with a role in embryonic ovarian development and folliculogenesis, as well as cofactors that point towards additional roles played by FOXL2 besides transcriptional regulation. This work constitutes a comprehensive resource for exploration of the molecular mechanisms of ovarian development and causes of female infertility.
Project description:FOXL2 is a transcription factor essential for female fertility, expressed in somatic cells of the ovary, notably granulosa cells. In the mouse, Foxl2 deletion leads to partial sex reversal postnatally, with mutants developing dysgenic ovaries devoid of oocytes. However, deletion of the gene in 8-week-old females leads to granulosa to Sertoli cell transdifferentiation and gonadal sex reversal. We hypothesise that different outcomes of Foxl2 deletion in embryonic versus adult ovary may depend on a different role played by FOXL2 across ovarian development. Therefore, in this study, we take a multi-omics approach to characterise the dynamics of gene expression and chromatin accessibility changes in purified murine granulosa cells across key developmental stages (E14.5, 1 and 8 weeks). We coupled these analyses with genome wide identification of FOXL2 target genes and on-chromatin interacting partners by ChIP-SICAP to reconstruct the gene regulatory networks underpinned by this essential transcription factor and to discover novel players. We found that, in the embryonic ovary, FOXL2 interacts with factors important for early stages of gonadal development, such as GATA4 and WT1, whilst postnatally it interacts with factors regulating primordial follicle activation, such as NR5A2, and with factors regulating steroidogenesis including AR and ESR2. Integration of chromatin landscape dynamics with gene expression changes and FOXL2 binding sites analysis revealed that its critical role in ovarian cell fate maintenance goes beyond repression of the Sertoli-specific gene Sox9. Our chromatome analysis revealed also that FOXL2 interacts with several proteins involved in chromatin remodelling, DNA repair, splicing and gene repression. We identified a FOXL2 interactor with a role in primordial follicle activation, Ubiquitin specific protease 7 (USP7). We showed that conditional deletion of this gene in granulosa cells leads to a blockage of primordial follicle activation, impairs ovary development and leads to complete sterility. In summary, in this study we identified target genes dynamically regulated by FOXL2 across ovarian development including known and newly identified FOXL2 targets with a role in embryonic ovarian development and folliculogenesis, as well as cofactors that point towards additional roles played by FOXL2 besides transcriptional regulation. This work constitutes a comprehensive resource for exploration of the molecular mechanisms of ovarian development and causes of female infertility.
Project description:FOXL2 is a transcription factor essential for female fertility, expressed in somatic cells of the ovary, notably granulosa cells. In the mouse, Foxl2 deletion leads to partial sex reversal postnatally, with mutants developing dysgenic ovaries devoid of oocytes. However, deletion of the gene in 8-week-old females leads to granulosa to Sertoli cell transdifferentiation and gonadal sex reversal. We hypothesise that different outcomes of Foxl2 deletion in embryonic versus adult ovary may depend on a different role played by FOXL2 across ovarian development. Therefore, in this study, we take a multi-omics approach to characterise the dynamics of gene expression and chromatin accessibility changes in purified murine granulosa cells across key developmental stages (E14.5, 1 and 8 weeks). We coupled these analyses with genome wide identification of FOXL2 target genes and on-chromatin interacting partners by ChIP-SICAP to reconstruct the gene regulatory networks underpinned by this essential transcription factor and to discover novel players. We found that, in the embryonic ovary, FOXL2 interacts with factors important for early stages of gonadal development, such as GATA4 and WT1, whilst postnatally it interacts with factors regulating primordial follicle activation, such as NR5A2, and with factors regulating steroidogenesis including AR and ESR2. Integration of chromatin landscape dynamics with gene expression changes and FOXL2 binding sites analysis revealed that its critical role in ovarian cell fate maintenance goes beyond repression of the Sertoli-specific gene Sox9. Our chromatome analysis revealed also that FOXL2 interacts with several proteins involved in chromatin remodelling, DNA repair, splicing and gene repression. We identified a FOXL2 interactor with a role in primordial follicle activation, Ubiquitin specific protease 7 (USP7). We showed that conditional deletion of this gene in granulosa cells leads to a blockage of primordial follicle activation, impairs ovary development and leads to complete sterility. In summary, in this study we identified target genes dynamically regulated by FOXL2 across ovarian development including known and newly identified FOXL2 targets with a role in embryonic ovarian development and folliculogenesis, as well as cofactors that point towards additional roles played by FOXL2 besides transcriptional regulation. This work constitutes a comprehensive resource for exploration of the molecular mechanisms of ovarian development and causes of female infertility.
Project description:ChIP-on-Chip experiment using chromatin from the human adult ovarian granulosa cell tumor derived cell line KGN (Nishi et al, 2001), or from a KGN subclone overexpressing WT FOXL2 (KF3 subclone), and an isovolumic blend of our custom anti-FOXL2 polyclonal antibodies (Cocquet J et al, 2002). Non precipitated sheared matched deproteinized chromatin (Input) was used a control to estimate enrichment peaks (and thus FOXL2 binding sites) from IPed DNA. DNA from three independent ChIP assays (Input extractions) was pooled, and 100ng of DNA was linearly amplified using the Whole Genome Amplification kit (Sigma). The two ChIP-chip experiments serve as biological replicates. Moreover, 42 out of 48 targets promoters chosen from the âenrichment peakâ list were subsequently confirmed as enrichment sites in anti-FOXL2 ChIPed DNA for subsequent experiments.
Project description:FOXL2 is a transcription factor essential for female fertility, expressed in somatic cells of the ovary, notably granulosa cells. In the mouse, Foxl2 deletion leads to partial sex reversal postnatally. However, deletion of the gene in 8-week-old females leads to granulosa to Sertoli cell transdifferentiation. We hypothesised that different outcomes of Foxl2 deletion in embryonic versus adult ovary may depend on a different role played across ovarian development. Therefore, we characterised the dynamics of gene expression and chromatin accessibility changes in purified murine granulosa cells across key developmental stages (E14.5, 1 and 8 weeks). We then performed genome-wide identification of FOXL2 target genes and on-chromatin interacting partners by ChIP-SICAP. We found that FOXL2 regulates more genes at postnatal stages, through the interaction with factors regulating primordial follicle activation (PFA), such as NR5A2, and others regulating steroidogenesis including AR and ESR2. As a proof of principle experiment, we chose one FOXL2 interactor, Ubiquitin specific protease 7 (USP7) and showed that deletion of this gene in granulosa cells leads to a blockage of PFA, impaired ovary development and sterility. Our study constitutes a comprehensive resource for exploration of the molecular mechanisms of ovarian development and causes of female infertility.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.