Project description:Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα) is a key driver of most breast cancers, and it is the target of endocrine therapies used in the clinic to treat women with ERα positive (ER+) breast cancer. The two methods ChIP-seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with deep sequencing) and RIME (Rapid Immunoprecipitation of Endogenous Proteins) have greatly improved our understanding of ERα function during breast cancer progression and in response to anti-estrogens. A critical component of both ChIP-seq and RIME protocols is the antibody that is used to pull down the bait protein. To date, most of the ChIP-seq and RIME experiments for the study of ERα have been performed using the sc-543 antibody from Santa Cruz Biotechnology. However, this antibody has been discontinued, thereby severely impacting the study of ERα in normal physiology as well as diseases such as breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Here, we compare the sc-543 antibody with other commercially available antibodies, and we show that 06-935 (EMD Millipore) and ab3575 (Abcam) antibodies can successfully replace the sc-543 antibody for ChIP-seq and RIME experiments.
Project description:Cellular senescence is a tumor-suppressive program that involves chromatin reorganization and specific changes in gene expression that trigger an irreversible cell-cycle arrest. We combined quantitative mass spectrometry and ChIP deep-sequencing to identify changes in histone modification occurring during cellular senescence. ChIP-seq was carried out using H3K4me3-specific antibodies in growing, quiescent, senescent, or senescent with shRB targeting Rb, IMR90 cells. The control mock data (ChIP-seq using anti-mouse IgG antibody) is available in GEO Sample GSM497500 (Series GSE19898).
Project description:Mammalian aging is characterized by the progressive loss of tissue integrity and function manifesting in ill health and increased risk for developing multiple chronic conditions. Accumulation of senescent cells in aging tissues partly contributes to this decline as targeted depletion of senescent cells in vivo ameliorates many age-related phenotypes. However, the fundamental molecular mechanisms responsible for the decline of cellular health and fitness during senescence and aging are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated whether chromatin-mediated loss of transcriptional fidelity, known to contribute to fitness and survival in yeast and worms, also occurs during human cellular senescence and mouse aging. Our findings reveal that aberrant transcription initiation inside genes is widespread in senescence and aging. It co-occurs with changes in the chromatin landscape and formation of non-canonical transcription start sites. Interventions that alter spurious transcripts have dramatic consequences on cellular health primarily affecting intracellular signal transduction pathways. We propose that spurious transcription is a conserved hallmark of aging that promotes a noisy transcriptome and a degradation of coherent transcriptional networks.
Project description:Oncogene-induced senescence (OIS) and therapy-induced senescence (TIS), while tumor-suppressive, also promote procarcinogenic effects by activating the DNA damage response (DDR), which in turn induces inflammation. This inflammatory response prominently includes an array of cytokines known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Previous observations link the transcription-associated methyltransferase and oncoprotein MLL1 to the DDR, leading us to investigate the role of MLL1 in SASP expression. Our findings reveal direct MLL1 epigenetic control over proproliferative cell cycle genes: MLL1 inhibition represses expression of proproliferative cell cycle regulators required for DNA replication and DDR activation, thus disabling SASP expression. Strikingly, however, these effects of MLL1 inhibition on SASP gene expression do not impair OIS and, furthermore, abolish the ability of the SASP to enhance cancer cell proliferation. More broadly, MLL1 inhibition also reduces �SASP-like� inflammatory gene expression from cancer cells in vitro and in vivo independently of senescence. Taken together, these data demonstrate that MLL1 inhibition may be a powerful and effective strategy for inducing cancerous growth arrest through the direct epigenetic regulation of proliferation-promoting genes and the avoidance of deleterious OIS- or TIS-related tumor secretomes, which can promote both drug resistance and tumor progression. This study examines the genome-wide distribution of gH2A.x and H3K4me3 by chIP-seq, using input and whole histone subunit H3 (respectively) as controls for local sonication efficiency bias. Each of the four chIPs has a single replicate each in (i) IMR90 fibroblasts transfected with a scramble control vector, (ii) the same cells subject to oncogene-induced senescence by stimulation of H-Ras V12, and (iii) in OIS cells with a shRNA targeting MLL1. Additionally, gH2A.x and input were sequenced with another replicate in control and OIS cells (both scramble control).