scholarly journals The transcriptionally permissive chromatin state of ES cells is acutely tuned to translational output

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aydan Bulut-Karslioglu ◽  
Trisha A. Macrae ◽  
Juan A. Oses-Prieto ◽  
Sergio Covarrubias ◽  
Michelle Percharde ◽  
...  

SUMMARYA permissive chromatin environment coupled to hypertranscription is critical to drive the rapid proliferation of Embryonic Stem (ES) cells and peri-implantation embryos. We carried out a genome-wide screen to systematically dissect the regulation of the euchromatic state of ES cells. The results reveal that activity of cellular growth pathways, prominently protein synthesis, perpetuates the euchromatic state and hypertranscription of ES cells. Acute, mild inhibition of translation results in rapid depletion of euchromatic marks in ES cells and blastocysts, concurrent with delocalization of RNA polymerase II and reduction in nascent transcription. Remarkably, reduced translational output leads to rewiring of open chromatin within 3 hours, including decreased accessibility at a subset of active developmental enhancers and increased accessibility at histone genes and transposable elements. Using a proteome-scale analysis, we show that several euchromatin regulators are unstable proteins and thus continuously depend on a high translational output. We propose that this mechanistic interdependence of euchromatin, transcription and translation sets the pace of proliferation at peri-implantation and may be employed generally by stem/progenitor cells.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tüzer Kalkan ◽  
Nelly Olova ◽  
Mila Roode ◽  
Carla Mulas ◽  
Heather J. Lee ◽  
...  

SummaryMouse embryonic stem (ES) cells are locked into self-renewal by shielding from inductive cues. Release from this ground state in minimal conditions offers a system for delineating developmental progression from naive pluripotency. Here we examined the initial transition of ES cells. The population behaves asynchronously. We therefore exploited a short-half-life Rex1::GFP reporter to isolate cells either side of exit from naive status. Extinction of ES cell identity in single cells is acute. It occurs only after near-complete elimination of naïve pluripotency factors, but precedes appearance of lineage specification markers. Cells newly departed from the ES cell state exhibit global transcriptome features consistent with features of early post-implantation epiblast and distinct from primed epiblast. They also exhibit a genome-wide increase in DNA methylation, intermediate between early and late epiblast. These findings are consistent with the proposition that naïve cells transition to a discrete formative phase of pluripotency preparatory to lineage priming.HighlightsThe Rex1 destabilized GFP reporter demarcates naive pluripotency.Exit from the naive state is asynchronous in the population.Transition is relatively acute in individual cells and precedes lineage priming.Transcriptome and DNA methylome reflect events in the pre-gastrulation embryo.


2011 ◽  
Vol 208 (13) ◽  
pp. 2675-2689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart A. Westerman ◽  
A. Koen Braat ◽  
Nicole Taub ◽  
Marko Potman ◽  
Joseph H.A. Vissers ◽  
...  

Despite intense investigation of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that regulate pluripotency, the process of initial fate commitment of embryonic stem (ES) cells is still poorly understood. We used a genome-wide short hairpin RNA screen in mouse ES cells to identify genes that are essential for initiation of differentiation. Knockdown of the scaffolding protein Mek binding protein 1 (Mp1, also known as Lamtor3 or Map2k1ip1) stimulated self-renewal of ES cells, blocked differentiation, and promoted proliferation. Fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4) signaling is required for initial fate commitment of ES cells. Knockdown of Mp1 inhibited FGF4-induced differentiation but did not alter FGF4-driven proliferation. This uncoupling of differentiation and proliferation was also observed when oncogenic Ras isoforms were overexpressed in ES cells. Knockdown of Mp1 redirected FGF4 signaling from differentiation toward pluripotency and up-regulated the pluripotency-related genes Esrrb, Rex1, Tcl1, and Sox2. We also found that human germ cell tumors (GCTs) express low amounts of Mp1 in the invasive embryonic carcinoma and seminoma histologies and higher amounts of Mp1 in the noninvasive carcinoma in situ precursor and differentiated components. Knockdown of Mp1 in invasive GCT cells resulted in resistance to differentiation, thereby showing a functional role for Mp1 both in normal differentiation of ES cells and in germ cell cancer.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Krueger ◽  
Julian R. Peat ◽  
Melanie A. Eckersley-Maslin ◽  
Timothy A. Hore ◽  
Hisham Mohammed ◽  
...  

AbstractThe methylcytosine dioxygenase Tet3 is highly expressed as a specific isoform in oocytes and zygotes but essentially absent from later stages of mouse preimplantation development. Here, we show that Tet3 expression promotes transdifferentiation of embryonic stem cells to trophoblast-like stem cells. By genome-wide analyses we demonstrate that TET3 associates with and co-occupies chromatin with RNA Polymerase II. Tet3 expression induces a global increase of transcription and total RNA levels, and its presence further enhances chromatin accessibility in regions open for transcription. This novel function of TET3 is not specific to the oocyte isoform, independent of its catalytic activity, the CXXC domain, or its interaction with OGT, and is localised in its highly conserved exon 4. We propose a more general role for TET3 promoting open chromatin and enhancing global transcription during changes of cellular identity, separate from its catalytic function.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bony De Kumar ◽  
Hugo J. Parker ◽  
Ariel Paulson ◽  
Mark E. Parrish ◽  
Irina Pushel ◽  
...  

AbstractHoxa1 has diverse functional roles in differentiation and development. We have identified and characterized properties of regions bound by Hoxa1 on a genome-wide basis in differentiating mouse ES cells. Hoxa1 bound regions are enriched for clusters of consensus binding motifs for Hox, Pbx and Meis and many display co-occupancy of Pbx and Meis. Pbx and Meis are members of the TALE family and genome-wide analysis of multiple TALE members (Pbx, Meis, TGIF, Prep1 and Prep2) show that nearly all Hoxa1 targets display occupancy of one or more TALE members. The combinatorial binding patterns of TALE proteins defines distinct classes of Hoxa1 targets and indicates a role as cofactors in modulating the specificity of Hox proteins. We also discovered extensive auto- and cross-regulatory interactions among the Hoxa1 and TALE genes. This study provides new insight into a regulatory network involving combinatorial interactions between Hoxa1 and TALE proteins.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aseda Tena ◽  
Yuxiang Zhang ◽  
Nia Kyritsis ◽  
Anne Devorak ◽  
Jeffrey Zurita ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTMild replication stress enhances appearance of dozens of robust recurrent genomic break clusters, termed RDCs, in cultured primary mouse neural stem and progenitor cells (NSPCs). Robust RDCs occur within genes (“RDC-genes”) that are long and have roles in neural cell communications and/or have been implicated in neuropsychiatric diseases or cancer. We sought to develop an in vitro approach to determine whether specific RDC formation is associated with neural development. For this purpose, we adapted a system to induce neural progenitor cell (NPC) development from mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines deficient for XRCC4 plus p53, a genotype that enhances DNA double-strand break (DSB) persistence to enhance detection. We tested for RDCs by our genome wide DSB identification approach that captures DSBs genome-wide via their ability to join to specific genomic Cas9/sgRNA-generated bait DSBs. In XRCC4/p53-deficient ES cells, we detected 7 RDCs, which were in genes, with two RDCs being robust. In contrast, in NPCs derived from these ES cell lines, we detected 29 RDCs, a large fraction of which were robust and associated with long, transcribed neural genes that were also robust RDC-genes in primary NSPCs. These studies suggest that many RDCs present in NSPCs are developmentally influenced to occur in this cell type and indicate that induced development of NPCs from ES cells provides an approach to rapidly elucidate mechanistic aspects of NPC RDC formation.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTWe previously discovered a set of long neural genes susceptible to frequent DNA breaks in primary mouse brain progenitor cells. We termed these genes RDC-genes. RDC-gene breakage during brain development might alter neural gene function and contribute to neurological diseases and brain cancer. To provide an approach to characterize the unknown mechanism of neural RDC-gene breakage, we asked whether RDC-genes appear in neural progenitors differentiated from embryonic stem cells in culture. Indeed, robust RDC-genes appeared in neural progenitors differentiated in culture and many overlapped with robust RDC-genes in primary brain progenitors. These studies indicate that in vitro development of neural progenitors provides a model system for elucidating how RDC-genes are formed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chitvan Mittal ◽  
Matthew J. Rossi ◽  
B. Franklin Pugh

AbstractChEC-seq is a method used to identify protein-DNA interactions across a genome. It involves fusing micrococcal nuclease (MNase) to a protein of interest. In principle, specific genome-wide interactions of the fusion protein with chromatin result in local DNA cleavages that can be mapped by DNA sequencing. ChEC-seq has been used to draw conclusions about broad gene-specificities of certain protein-DNA interactions. In particular, the transcriptional regulators SAGA, TFIID, and Mediator are reported to generally occupy the promoter/UAS of genes transcribed by RNA polymerase II in yeast. Here we compare published yeast ChEC-seq data performed with a variety of protein fusions across essentially all genes, and find high similarities with negative controls. We conclude that ChEC-seq patterning for SAGA, TFIID, and Mediator differ little from background at most promoter regions, and thus cannot be used to draw conclusions about broad gene specificity of these factors.


2011 ◽  
Vol 195 (6) ◽  
pp. i9-i9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart A. Westerman ◽  
A. Koen Braat ◽  
Nicole Taub ◽  
Marko Potman ◽  
Joseph H.A. Vissers ◽  
...  

mBio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric G. Matson ◽  
Adam Z. Rosenthal ◽  
Xinning Zhang ◽  
Jared R. Leadbetter

ABSTRACTWhen prokaryotic cells acquire mutations, encounter translation-inhibiting substances, or experience adverse environmental conditions that limit their ability to synthesize proteins, transcription can become uncoupled from translation. Such uncoupling is known to suppress transcription of protein-encoding genes in bacteria. Here we show that the trace element selenium controls transcription of the gene for the selenocysteine-utilizing enzyme formate dehydrogenase (fdhFSec) through a translation-coupled mechanism in the termite gut symbiontTreponema primitia, a member of the bacterial phylumSpirochaetes. We also evaluated changes in genome-wide transcriptional patterns caused by selenium limitation and by generally uncoupling translation from transcription via antibiotic-mediated inhibition of protein synthesis. We observed that inhibiting protein synthesis inT. primitiainfluences transcriptional patterns in unexpected ways. In addition to suppressing transcription of certain genes, the expected consequence of inhibiting protein synthesis, we found numerous examples in which transcription of genes and operons is truncated far downstream from putative promoters, is unchanged, or is even stimulated overall. These results indicate that gene regulation in bacteria allows for specific post-initiation transcriptional responses during periods of limited protein synthesis, which may depend both on translational coupling and on unclassified intrinsic elements of protein-encoding genes.IMPORTANCEA large body of literature demonstrates that the coupling of transcription and translation is a general and essential method by which bacteria regulate gene expression levels. However, the potential role of noncanonical amino acids in regulating transcriptional output via translational control remains, for the most part, undefined. Furthermore, the genome-wide transcriptional state in response to translational decoupling is not well quantified. The results presented here suggest that the noncanonical amino acid selenocysteine is able to tune transcription of an important metabolic gene via translational coupling. Furthermore, a genome-wide analysis reveals that transcriptional decoupling produces a wide-ranging effect and that this effect is not uniform. These results exemplify how growth conditions that impact translational processivity can rapidly feed back on transcriptional productivity of prespecified groups of genes, providing bacteria with an efficient response to environmental changes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (575) ◽  
pp. eabd2655
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Yuxuan Zheng ◽  
Shuhui Sun ◽  
Wei Li ◽  
Moshi Song ◽  
...  

Understanding the genetic and epigenetic bases of cellular senescence is instrumental in developing interventions to slow aging. We performed genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9–based screens using two types of human mesenchymal precursor cells (hMPCs) exhibiting accelerated senescence. The hMPCs were derived from human embryonic stem cells carrying the pathogenic mutations that cause the accelerated aging diseases Werner syndrome and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. Genes whose deficiency alleviated cellular senescence were identified, including KAT7, a histone acetyltransferase, which ranked as a top hit in both progeroid hMPC models. Inactivation of KAT7 decreased histone H3 lysine 14 acetylation, repressed p15INK4b transcription, and alleviated hMPC senescence. Moreover, lentiviral vectors encoding Cas9/sg-Kat7, given intravenously, alleviated hepatocyte senescence and liver aging and extended life span in physiologically aged mice as well as progeroid Zmpste24−/− mice that exhibit a premature aging phenotype. CRISPR-Cas9–based genetic screening is a robust method for systematically uncovering senescence genes such as KAT7, which may represent a therapeutic target for developing aging interventions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina A. Latos ◽  
Angela Goncalves ◽  
David Oxley ◽  
Hisham Mohammed ◽  
Ernest Turro ◽  
...  

Abstract Esrrb (oestrogen-related receptor beta) is a transcription factor implicated in embryonic stem (ES) cell self-renewal, yet its knockout causes intrauterine lethality due to defects in trophoblast development. Here we show that in trophoblast stem (TS) cells, Esrrb is a downstream target of fibroblast growth factor (Fgf) signalling and is critical to drive TS cell self-renewal. In contrast to its occupancy of pluripotency-associated loci in ES cells, Esrrb sustains the stemness of TS cells by direct binding and regulation of TS cell-specific transcription factors including Elf5 and Eomes. To elucidate the mechanisms whereby Esrrb controls the expression of its targets, we characterized its TS cell-specific interactome using mass spectrometry. Unlike in ES cells, Esrrb interacts in TS cells with the histone demethylase Lsd1 and with the RNA Polymerase II-associated Integrator complex. Our findings provide new insights into both the general and context-dependent wiring of transcription factor networks in stem cells by master transcription factors.


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