Project description:Innate immunity in bacteria, plants and animals requires the specialized subset of TIR-domain proteins that are NAD+ hydrolases. Aggregation of these TIR proteins engages their enzymatic activity, but it is not known how this protein multimerization is regulated. Here, we discovered that TIR oligomerization is exquisitely controlled to prevent immune toxicity. We found that p38 propagates its own activation by promoting the feedforward expression and aggregation of the lone enzymatic TIR protein in the nematode C. elegans, TIR-1/SARM1. We performed a forward genetic screen to determine how the p38 positive feedforward loop is regulated. We discovered that the integrity of the specific lysosomal sub-compartment that expresses TIR-1/SARM1 is actively maintained to limit inappropriate aggregation of this protein and restrain toxic p38 immune activation. Thus, innate immune defenses in intestinal epithelial cells are regulated by specific control of TIR-1/SARM1 multimerization.
Project description:The submitted data have been utilized in the following two papers: "Drosophila poised enhancers are generated during tissue patterning with the help of repression" (Koenecke et al 2016, Genome Research): Histone modifications are frequently used as markers for enhancer states, but how to interpret enhancer states in the context of embryonic development is not clear. The poised enhancer signature, involving H3K4me1 and low levels of H3K27ac, has been reported to mark inactive enhancers that are poised for future activation. However, future activation is not always observed and alternative reasons for the widespread occurrence of this enhancer signature have not been investigated. By analyzing enhancers during dorsal-ventral (DV) axis formation in the Drosophila embryo, we find that the poised enhancer signature is specifically generated during patterning in the tissue where the enhancers are not induced, including at enhancers that are known to be repressed by a transcriptional repressor. These results suggest that, rather than serving simply as an intermediate step before future activation, the poised enhancer state may mark enhancers for spatial activation during tissue patterning. We discuss the possibility that the poised enhancer state is more generally the result of repression by transcriptional repressors. "Genome-wide identification of Drosophila dorso-ventral enhancers by differential histone acetylation analysis" (Koenecke and Johnston et al 2016, Genome Biol): Background: Drosophila dorso-ventral (DV) patterning is one of the best-understood regulatory networks to date, and illustrates the fundamental role of enhancers in controlling patterning, cell fate specification and morphogenesis during development. Histone acetylation such as H3K27ac is an excellent marker for active enhancers, but it is challenging to obtain precise locations for enhancers as the highest levels of this modification flank the enhancer regions. How to best identify tissue-specific enhancers in a developmental system de novo with a minimal set of data is still unclear. Results: Using DV patterning as a test system, we develop a simple and effective method to identify tissue-specific enhancers de novo. We sample a broad set of candidate enhancer regions using data on CBP co-factor binding or ATAC-seq chromatin accessibility, and then identify those regions with significant differences in histone acetylation between tissues. This method identifies hundreds of novel DV enhancers and outperforms ChIP-seq data of relevant transcription factors when benchmarked with mRNA expression data and transgenic reporter assays. These DV enhancers allow the de novo discovery of the relevant transcription factor motifs involved in DV patterning and contain additional motifs that are evolutionarily conserved and for which the corresponding transcription factors are expressed in a DV-biased fashion. Finally, we identify novel target genes of the regulatory network, implicating morphogenesis genes as early targets of DV patterning. Conclusions: Taken together, our approach has expanded our knowledge of the DV patterning network even further and is a general method to identify enhancers in any developmental system, including mammalian development.
Project description:Analysis of total RNA extracted from primary macrophages infected with the bacterial strains of EHEC or EHEC∆Tir. The results showed that Tir might regulate the expression of selected genes.
Project description:Programmed cell suicide of infected bacteria, known as abortive infection (Abi), serves as a central immune defense strategy to prevent the spread of bacteriophage viruses and other invasive genetic elements across a population. Many Abi systems utilize bespoke cyclic nucleotide immune messengers generated upon infection to rapidly mobilize cognate death effectors. Here, we identify a large family of bacteriophage nucleotidyltransferases (NTases) which synthesize competitor cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) ligands and inhibit NAD-depleting TIR effectors activated through a linked STING CDN sensor domain (TIR-STING). Through a functional screen of NTase-adjacent phage genes, we uncover candidate inhibitors of host TIR-STING suicide signaling. Among these, we demonstrate that a virus MazG-like nucleotide pyrophosphatase, Atd1, depletes the starvation alarmone (p)ppGpp, revealing a role for the alarmone-activated host toxin MazF as a key executioner of TIR-driven abortive infection. Phage NTases and counter-defenses like Atd1 preserve host viability to ensure virus propagation, and may be exploited as tools to modulate TIR and STING immune responses.
Project description:Among the diseases caused by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) abnormal activation by bacterial endotoxin, sepsis is the most dangerous one. The reprogramming of macrophages plays a crucial role in orchestrating the pathogenesis of sepsis. However, the precise mechanism underlying TLR4 activation in macrophages remained incompletely understood. Our studies revealed that upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, CREB-binding protein (CBP) was recruited to the TLR4 signalosome complex and resulted in pronounced acetylation in the TIR domains of TLR4, Myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) and MyD88 adapter-like (MAL), which significantly enhanced the activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway and polarization of M1 macrophages. In sepsis patients, significantly elevated TLR4-TIR acetylation was detected in CD16+ monocytes combined with elevated expression of M1 macrophage markers and production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. In contrast, histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) served as a key deacetylase in the deacetylation of the TIR domain complex. The inhibition of HDAC1 accelerated sepsis-associated syndromes, while the inhibition of CBP alleviated this process. Overall, our findings highlighted the crucial role of TIR domain complex acetylation in the regulation of inflammatory immune response and suggested that the reversible acetylation of the complex emerged as a promising therapeutic target for M1 macrophages during the progression of sepsis.