Project description:Identification of histone acetylation targets of Kat2a activity in murine models of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) driven by the MLL-AF9 oncogenic fusion
Project description:Identification of histone acetylation targets of Kat2a activity in murine models of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) driven by the MLL-AF9 oncogenic fusion
Project description:Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is an aggressive hematological malignancy with abnormal progenitor self-renewal and defective white blood cell differentiation. Its pathogenesis comprises subversion of transcriptional regulation, through mutation and by hijacking normal chromatin regulation. Kat2a is a histone acetyltransferase central to promoter activity, that we recently associated with stability of pluripotency networks, and identified as a genetic vulnerability in AML. Through combined chromatin profiling and single-cell transcriptomics of a conditional knockout mouse, we demonstrate that Kat2a contributes to leukemia propagation through preservation of leukemia stem-like cells. Kat2a loss impacts transcription factor binding and reduces transcriptional burst frequency in a subset of gene promoters, generating enhanced variability of transcript levels. Destabilization of target programs shifts leukemia cell fate out of self-renewal into differentiation. We propose that control of transcriptional variability is central to leukemia stem-like cell propagation, and establish a paradigm exploitable in different tumors and distinct stages of cancer evolution.
Project description:We sequenced mRNA from 24 samples extracted from mouse CA1 tissue to generate the first CA1-specific murine transcriptome and the first CA1-transcriptome in response to environmental novelty under normal and Kat2a-loss-of-function conditions. Samples were divded in 4 groups: A: Control naM-CM-/ve (n=6), B: control novelty-exposed (n=5), C: Kat2a cKO naM-CM-/ve (n=6), D: Kat2a cKO novelty-exposed (n=7). Pairwise comparisons for AvsB, AvsC, BvsD and CvsD were performed using DESeq2.
Project description:We sequenced small RNAs from 12 samples extracted from mouse CA1 tissue to generate the first CA1-specific murine miRNome under normal and Kat2a-loss-of-function conditions. Samples were divded in 4 groups: A: Control (n=6), C: Kat2a cKO naïve (n=6)
Project description:Noise-induced hidden hearing loss (HHL) is a new type of hearing loss that has been identified in recent years and leads to insidious damage to the cochlea, unlike the well-known noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). However, the cellular and molecular basis for it remains to be elucidated. Here, we established a single-cell transcriptome profile of the C57BL/6J mouse cochlea, in which we describe the transcriptome changes of individual cell types within the cochlea with HHL and NIHL. Mice in the HHL group were exposed to 110 dB of noise for 2 hours, and those in the NIHL group were exposed to 115 dB of noise for 4 hours for 3 days. The cochlea was taken 6 hours after the last noise exposure. The control group was not exposed to noise, with other conditions being the same as those in the noise-exposed group. The results of sequencing at the single-cell level help us gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the development of HHL and NIHL.
Project description:Cell fate transitions in mammalian stem cell systems have often been associated with transcriptional heterogeneity, however existing data have failed to establish a functional or mechanistic link between the two phenomena. Experiments in unicellular organisms support the notion that transcriptional heterogeneity can be used to facilitate adaptability to environmental changes and have identified conserved chromatin-associated factors that modulate levels of transcriptional noise. By inhibiting the paradigmatic histone acetyl-transferase, and candidate noise modulator, Kat2a (yeast orthologue Gcn5) in mouse embryonic stem cells, we show destabilisation of pluripotency-associated gene regulatory networks through increased global and locus-specific transcriptional heterogeneity. Functionally, network destabilisation associates with reduced pluripotency and accelerated mesendodermal differentiation, with increased probability of transitions into lineage commitment. Thus, we functionally link transcriptional heterogeneity to cell fate transitions through manipulation of the histone acetylation landscape of mouse embryonic stem cells and establish a general paradigm that could be exploited in other normal and malignant stem cell fate transitions.