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Schuster SL, Arora S, Wladyka CL, Itagi P, Corey L, Young D, Stackhouse BL, Kollath L, Wu QV, Corey E, True LD, Ha G, Paddison PJ, Hsieh AC. Multi-level functional genomics reveals molecular and cellular oncogenicity of patient-based 3' untranslated region mutations. Cell Rep 2023; 42:112840. [PMID: 37516102 PMCID: PMC10540565 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112840] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2022] [Revised: 06/05/2023] [Accepted: 07/05/2023] [Indexed: 07/31/2023] Open
Abstract
3' untranslated region (3' UTR) somatic mutations represent a largely unexplored avenue of alternative oncogenic gene dysregulation. To determine the significance of 3' UTR mutations in disease, we identify 3' UTR somatic variants across 185 advanced prostate tumors, discovering 14,497 single-nucleotide mutations enriched in oncogenic pathways and 3' UTR regulatory elements. By developing two complementary massively parallel reporter assays, we measure how thousands of patient-based mutations affect mRNA translation and stability and identify hundreds of functional variants that allow us to define determinants of mutation significance. We demonstrate the clinical relevance of these mutations, observing that CRISPR-Cas9 endogenous editing of distinct variants increases cellular stress resistance and that patients harboring oncogenic 3' UTR mutations have a particularly poor prognosis. This work represents an expansive view of the extent to which disease-relevant 3' UTR mutations affect mRNA stability, translation, and cancer progression, uncovering principles of regulatory functionality and potential therapeutic targets in previously unexplored regulatory regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samantha L Schuster
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Sonali Arora
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Cynthia L Wladyka
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Pushpa Itagi
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Lukas Corey
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Dave Young
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | | | - Lori Kollath
- Department of Urology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Qian V Wu
- Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Eva Corey
- Department of Urology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Lawrence D True
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Gavin Ha
- Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Patrick J Paddison
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Andrew C Hsieh
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
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2
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Oliveros W, Delfosse K, Lato DF, Kiriakopulos K, Mokhtaridoost M, Said A, McMurray BJ, Browning JW, Mattioli K, Meng G, Ellis J, Mital S, Melé M, Maass PG. Systematic characterization of regulatory variants of blood pressure genes. Cell Genom 2023; 3:100330. [PMID: 37492106 PMCID: PMC10363820 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Revised: 03/29/2023] [Accepted: 04/28/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023]
Abstract
High blood pressure (BP) is the major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Genome-wide association studies have identified genetic variants for BP, but functional insights into causality and related molecular mechanisms lag behind. We functionally characterize 4,608 genetic variants in linkage with 135 BP loci in vascular smooth muscle cells and cardiomyocytes by massively parallel reporter assays. High densities of regulatory variants at BP loci (i.e., ULK4, MAP4, CFDP1, PDE5A) indicate that multiple variants drive genetic association. Regulatory variants are enriched in repeats, alter cardiovascular-related transcription factor motifs, and spatially converge with genes controlling specific cardiovascular pathways. Using heuristic scoring, we define likely causal variants, and CRISPR prime editing finally determines causal variants for KCNK9, SFXN2, and PCGF6, which are candidates for developing high BP. Our systems-level approach provides a catalog of functionally relevant variants and their genomic architecture in two trait-relevant cell lines for a better understanding of BP gene regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Winona Oliveros
- Life Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Kate Delfosse
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Daniella F. Lato
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Katerina Kiriakopulos
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Milad Mokhtaridoost
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Abdelrahman Said
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Brandon J. McMurray
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jared W.L. Browning
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Kaia Mattioli
- Division of Genetics, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Guoliang Meng
- Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - James Ellis
- Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Seema Mital
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
- Department of Pediatrics, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Marta Melé
- Life Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Philipp G. Maass
- Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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3
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Liang Q, Cheng X, Wang J, Owen L, Shakoor A, Lillvis JL, Zhang C, Farkas M, Kim IK, Li Y, DeAngelis M, Chen R. A multi-omics atlas of the human retina at single-cell resolution. Cell Genom 2023; 3:100298. [PMID: 37388908 PMCID: PMC10300490 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100298] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2022] [Revised: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 03/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
Cell classes in the human retina are highly heterogeneous with their abundance varying by several orders of magnitude. Here, we generated and integrated a multi-omics single-cell atlas of the adult human retina, including more than 250,000 nuclei for single-nuclei RNA-seq and 137,000 nuclei for single-nuclei ATAC-seq. Cross-species comparison of the retina atlas among human, monkey, mice, and chicken revealed relatively conserved and non-conserved types. Interestingly, the overall cell heterogeneity in primate retina decreases compared with that of rodent and chicken retina. Through integrative analysis, we identified 35,000 distal cis-element-gene pairs, constructed transcription factor (TF)-target regulons for more than 200 TFs, and partitioned the TFs into distinct co-active modules. We also revealed the heterogeneity of the cis-element-gene relationships in different cell types, even from the same class. Taken together, we present a comprehensive single-cell multi-omics atlas of the human retina as a resource that enables systematic molecular characterization at individual cell-type resolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qingnan Liang
- HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Xuesen Cheng
- HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Jun Wang
- HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Leah Owen
- Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
- Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
| | - Akbar Shakoor
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
| | - John L. Lillvis
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
- VA Western New York Healthcare System, Buffalo, NY 14215, USA
| | - Charles Zhang
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
| | - Michael Farkas
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
- VA Western New York Healthcare System, Buffalo, NY 14215, USA
| | - Ivana K. Kim
- Retina Service, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
| | - Yumei Li
- HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Margaret DeAngelis
- Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
- Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
- Department of Ophthalmology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
- VA Western New York Healthcare System, Buffalo, NY 14215, USA
| | - Rui Chen
- HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
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Alfonso-Gonzalez C, Legnini I, Holec S, Arrigoni L, Ozbulut HC, Mateos F, Koppstein D, Rybak-Wolf A, Bönisch U, Rajewsky N, Hilgers V. Sites of transcription initiation drive mRNA isoform selection. Cell 2023; 186:2438-2455.e22. [PMID: 37178687 PMCID: PMC10228280 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.04.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2022] [Revised: 12/16/2022] [Accepted: 04/06/2023] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
The generation of distinct messenger RNA isoforms through alternative RNA processing modulates the expression and function of genes, often in a cell-type-specific manner. Here, we assess the regulatory relationships between transcription initiation, alternative splicing, and 3' end site selection. Applying long-read sequencing to accurately represent even the longest transcripts from end to end, we quantify mRNA isoforms in Drosophila tissues, including the transcriptionally complex nervous system. We find that in Drosophila heads, as well as in human cerebral organoids, 3' end site choice is globally influenced by the site of transcription initiation (TSS). "Dominant promoters," characterized by specific epigenetic signatures including p300/CBP binding, impose a transcriptional constraint to define splice and polyadenylation variants. In vivo deletion or overexpression of dominant promoters as well as p300/CBP loss disrupted the 3' end expression landscape. Our study demonstrates the crucial impact of TSS choice on the regulation of transcript diversity and tissue identity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos Alfonso-Gonzalez
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany; Faculty of Biology, Albert Ludwig University, 79104 Freiburg, Germany; International Max Planck Research School for Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMPRS-MCB), 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Ivano Legnini
- Laboratory for Systems Biology of Gene Regulatory Elements, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Sarah Holec
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Laura Arrigoni
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Hasan Can Ozbulut
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany; Faculty of Biology, Albert Ludwig University, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Fernando Mateos
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - David Koppstein
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Agnieszka Rybak-Wolf
- Organoid Platform, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Ulrike Bönisch
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Nikolaus Rajewsky
- Laboratory for Systems Biology of Gene Regulatory Elements, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, 10115 Berlin, Germany; Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Charitépl. 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany; German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), Site Berlin, Berlin, Germany; NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence, Berlin, Germany; German Cancer Consortium (DKTK); National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Site Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Valérie Hilgers
- Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, 79108 Freiburg, Germany; Signalling Research Centre CIBSS, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestraße 18, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.
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5
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Jung J, Ohk J, Kim H, Holt CE, Park HJ, Jung H. mRNA transport, translation, and decay in adult mammalian central nervous system axons. Neuron 2023; 111:650-668.e4. [PMID: 36584679 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.12.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2022] [Revised: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 12/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Localized mRNA translation regulates synapse function and axon maintenance, but how compartment-specific mRNA repertoires are regulated is largely unknown. We developed an axonal transcriptome capture method that allows deep sequencing of metabolically labeled mRNAs from retinal ganglion cell axon terminals in mouse. Comparing axonal-to-somal transcriptomes and axonal translatome-to-transcriptome enables genome-wide visualization of mRNA transport and translation and unveils potential regulators tuned to each process. FMRP and TDP-43 stand out as key regulators of transport, and experiments in Fmr1 knockout mice validate FMRP's role in the axonal transportation of synapse-related mRNAs. Pulse-and-chase experiments enable genome-wide assessment of mRNA stability in axons and reveal a strong coupling between mRNA translation and decay. Measuring the absolute mRNA abundance per axon terminal shows that the adult axonal transcriptome is stably maintained by persistent transport. Our datasets provide a rich resource for unique insights into RNA-based mechanisms in maintaining presynaptic structure and function in vivo.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jane Jung
- Department of Anatomy, Graduate School of Medical Science, Brain Korea 21 Project, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea
| | - Jiyeon Ohk
- Department of Anatomy, Graduate School of Medical Science, Brain Korea 21 Project, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea
| | - Hyeyoung Kim
- Department of Anatomy, Graduate School of Medical Science, Brain Korea 21 Project, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea
| | - Christine E Holt
- Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DY, UK
| | - Hyun Jung Park
- Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
| | - Hosung Jung
- Department of Anatomy, Graduate School of Medical Science, Brain Korea 21 Project, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
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Tong X, Li WX, Liang J, Zheng Y, Dai SX. Two different aging paths in human blood revealed by integrated analysis of gene Expression, mutation and alternative splicing. Gene 2022; 829:146501. [PMID: 35452709 DOI: 10.1016/j.gene.2022.146501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2022] [Revised: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 04/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Aging is a complex life process that human organs and tissues steadily and continuously decline. Aging has huge heterogeneity, which shows different aging rates among different individuals and in different tissues of the same individual. Many studies of aging are often contradictory and show little common signature. The integrated analysis of these transcriptome datasets will provide an unbiased global view of the aging process. Here, we integrated 8 transcriptome datasets including 757 samples from healthy human blood to study aging from three aspects of gene expression, mutations, and alternative splicing. Surprisingly, we found that transcriptome changes in blood are relatively independent of the chronological age. Further pseudotime analysis revealed two different aging paths (AgingPath1 and AgingPath2) in human blood. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) along the two paths showed a limited overlap and are enriched in different biological processes. The mutations of DEGs in AgingPath1 are significantly increased in the aging process, while the opposite trend was observed in AgingPath2. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and splicing quantitative trait loci (sQTL) analysis identified 304 important mutations that can affect both gene expression and alternative splicing during aging. Finally, by comparison between aging and Alzheimer's disease, we identified 37 common DEGs in AgingPath1, AgingPath2 and Alzheimer's disease. These genes may contribute to the shift from aging state to Alzheimer's disease. In summary, this study revealed the two aging paths and the related genes and mutations, which provides a new insight into aging and aging-related disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Tong
- State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research; Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China; Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China
| | - Wen-Xing Li
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, Guangdong, China
| | - Jihao Liang
- State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research; Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China; Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China
| | - Yang Zheng
- State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research; Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China; Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China
| | - Shao-Xing Dai
- State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research; Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China; Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China.
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Reynisdottir T, Anderson KJ, Boukas L, Bjornsson HT. Missense variants causing Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome preferentially occur in the KMT2A-CXXC domain and are accurately classified using AlphaFold2. PLoS Genet 2022; 18:e1010278. [PMID: 35727845 PMCID: PMC9249231 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2022] [Revised: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 05/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome (WDSTS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by de novo variants in KMT2A, which encodes a multi-domain histone methyltransferase. To gain insight into the currently unknown pathogenesis of WDSTS, we examined the spatial distribution of likely WDSTS-causing variants across the 15 different domains of KMT2A. Compared to variants in healthy controls, WDSTS variants exhibit a 61.9-fold overrepresentation within the CXXC domain–which mediates binding to unmethylated CpGs–suggesting a major role for this domain in mediating the phenotype. In contrast, we find no significant overrepresentation within the catalytic SET domain. Corroborating these results, we find that hippocampal neurons from Kmt2a-deficient mice demonstrate disrupted histone methylation (H3K4me1 and H3K4me3) preferentially at CpG-rich regions, but this has no systematic impact on gene expression. Motivated by these results, we combine accurate prediction of the CXXC domain structure by AlphaFold2 with prior biological knowledge to develop a classification scheme for missense variants in the CXXC domain. Our classifier achieved 92.6% positive and 92.9% negative predictive value on a hold-out test set. This classification performance enabled us to subsequently perform an in silico saturation mutagenesis and classify a total of 445 variants according to their functional effects. Our results yield a novel insight into the mechanistic basis of WDSTS and provide an example of how AlphaFold2 can contribute to the in silico characterization of variant effects with very high accuracy, suggesting a paradigm potentially applicable to many other Mendelian disorders. Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome (WDSTS) is a neurodevelopmental pediatric disorder caused by the genetic disruption of the histone methyltransferase KMT2A. Since KMT2A has many different domains that perform different functions, we reasoned that by identifying the domains most enriched for WDSTS-causing genetic variants we would gain insights into the incompletely understood molecular pathogenesis of WDSTS. We discovered that the CXXC domain—which binds unmethylated CpGs—shows by far the greatest enrichment, suggesting that loss of the CpG-binding ability of KMT2A plays a central role in WDSTS. Next, to understand specific rules underlying the genetic disruption of the CXXC domain, we combined prior knowledge about the function/structure of the domain with 3D structure prediction by AlphaFold2 to develop an effect classifier for CXXC missense variants. We found that this classifier exhibits accurate performance, and we therefore applied it to provide classifications for any such variant that can possibly arise, in order to aid in the interpretation of such variants in the clinic. Our work provides novel insights into WDSTS and suggests a strategy for missense variant classification that can potentially be applied to many other pediatric genetic disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tinna Reynisdottir
- Laboratory of Translational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Kimberley Jade Anderson
- Laboratory of Translational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Leandros Boukas
- McKusick-Nathans Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
- * E-mail: (LB); (HTB)
| | - Hans Tomas Bjornsson
- Laboratory of Translational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
- McKusick-Nathans Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland
- * E-mail: (LB); (HTB)
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8
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Bernardini A, Gallo A, Gnesutta N, Dolfini D, Mantovani R. Phylogeny of NF-YA trans-activation splicing isoforms in vertebrate evolution. Genomics 2022; 114:110390. [PMID: 35589059 DOI: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2022.110390] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2021] [Revised: 05/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
NF-Y is a trimeric pioneer Transcription Factor (TF) whose target sequence -the CCAAT box- is present in ~25% of mammalian promoters. We reconstruct the phylogenetic history of the regulatory NF-YA subunit in vertebrates. We find that in addition to the remarkable conservation of the subunits-interaction and DNA-binding parts, the Transcriptional Activation Domain (TAD) is also conserved (>90% identity among bony vertebrates). We infer the phylogeny of the alternatively spliced exon-3 and partial splicing events of exon-7 -7N and 7C- revealing independent clade-specific losses of these regions. These isoforms shape the TAD. Absence of exon-3 in basal deuterostomes, cartilaginous fishes and hagfish, but not in lampreys, suggests that the "short" isoform is primordial, with emergence of exon-3 in chordates. Exon 7N was present in the vertebrate common ancestor, while 7C is a molecular innovation of teleost fishes. RNA-seq analysis in several species confirms expression of all these isoforms. We identify 3 blocks of amino acids in the TAD shared across deuterostomes, yet structural predictions and sequence analyses suggest an evolutionary drive for maintenance of an Intrinsically Disordered Region -IDR- within the TAD. Overall, these data help reconstruct the logic for alternative splicing of this essential eukaryotic TF.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Bernardini
- Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy.
| | - Alberto Gallo
- Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy
| | - Nerina Gnesutta
- Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy
| | - Diletta Dolfini
- Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy
| | - Roberto Mantovani
- Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy.
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Pérez RF, Tejedor JR, Santamarina-Ojeda P, Martínez VL, Urdinguio RG, Villamañán L, Candiota AP, Sarró NMV, Barradas M, Fernandez-Marcos PJ, Serrano M, Fernández AF, Fraga MF. Conservation of Aging and Cancer Epigenetic Signatures across Human and Mouse. Mol Biol Evol 2021; 38:3415-3435. [PMID: 33871658 PMCID: PMC8321527 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Aging and cancer are two interrelated processes, with aging being a major risk factor for the development of cancer. Parallel epigenetic alterations have been described for both, although differences, especially within the DNA hypomethylation scenario, have also been recently reported. Although many of these observations arise from the use of mouse models, there is a lack of systematic comparisons of human and mouse epigenetic patterns in the context of disease. However, such comparisons are significant as they allow to establish the extent to which some of the observed similarities or differences arise from pre-existing species-specific epigenetic traits. Here, we have used reduced representation bisulfite sequencing to profile the brain methylomes of young and old, tumoral and nontumoral brain samples from human and mouse. We first characterized the baseline epigenomic patterns of the species and subsequently focused on the DNA methylation alterations associated with cancer and aging. Next, we described the functional genomic and epigenomic context associated with the alterations, and finally, we integrated our data to study interspecies DNA methylation levels at orthologous CpG sites. Globally, we found considerable differences between the characteristics of DNA methylation alterations in cancer and aging in both species. Moreover, we describe robust evidence for the conservation of the specific cancer and aging epigenomic signatures in human and mouse. Our observations point toward the preservation of the functional consequences of these alterations at multiple levels of genomic regulation. Finally, our analyses reveal a role for the genomic context in explaining disease- and species-specific epigenetic traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raúl F Pérez
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Juan Ramón Tejedor
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Pablo Santamarina-Ojeda
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Virginia López Martínez
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Rocío G Urdinguio
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Lucía Villamañán
- Unitat de Bioquímica de Biociències, Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Edifici Cs, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
| | - Ana Paula Candiota
- Unitat de Bioquímica de Biociències, Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Edifici Cs, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.,Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (CIBER-BBN), Madrid, Spain
| | - N Mí Vidal Sarró
- Servicio Anatomía Patológica, Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge-IDIBELL, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain
| | - Marta Barradas
- Metabolic Syndrome Group-BIOPROMET, Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies-IMDEA Food, CEI UAM+CSIC, Madrid, Spain
| | - Pablo Jose Fernandez-Marcos
- Metabolic Syndrome Group-BIOPROMET, Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies-IMDEA Food, CEI UAM+CSIC, Madrid, Spain
| | - Manuel Serrano
- Tumour Suppression Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.,Cellular Plasticity and Disease Group, Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Barcelona, Spain.,Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Agusín F Fernández
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
| | - Mario F Fraga
- Cancer Epigenetics and Nanomedicine Laboratory, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN-CSIC), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Institute of Oncology of Asturias (IUOPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Health Research Institute of Asturias (ISPA), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Department of Organisms and Systems Biology (B.O.S.), University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.,Rare Diseases CIBER (CIBERER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
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10
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Xiao Q, Gao P, Huang X, Chen X, Chen Q, Lv X, Fu Y, Song Y, Wang Z. tRFTars: predicting the targets of tRNA-derived fragments. J Transl Med 2021; 19:88. [PMID: 33632236 PMCID: PMC7908658 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-021-02731-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2020] [Accepted: 01/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Background tRNA-derived fragments (tRFs) are 14–40-nucleotide-long, small non-coding RNAs derived from specific tRNA cleavage events with key regulatory functions in many biological processes. Many studies have shown that tRFs are associated with Argonaute (AGO) complexes and inhibit gene expression in the same manner as miRNAs. However, there are currently no tools for accurately predicting tRF target genes. Methods We used tRF-mRNA pairs identified by crosslinking, ligation, and sequencing of hybrids (CLASH) and covalent ligation of endogenous AGO-bound RNAs (CLEAR)-CLIP to assess features that may participate in tRF targeting, including the sequence context of each site and tRF-mRNA interactions. We applied genetic algorithm (GA) to select key features and support vector machine (SVM) to construct tRF prediction models. Results We first identified features that globally influenced tRF targeting. Among these features, the most significant were the minimum free folding energy (MFE), position 8 match, number of bases paired in the tRF-mRNA duplex, and length of the tRF, which were consistent with previous findings. Our constructed model yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) = 0.980 (0.977–0.983) in the training process and an AUC = 0.847 (0.83–0.861) in the test process. The model was applied to all the sites with perfect Watson–Crick complementarity to the seed in the 3′ untranslated region (3′-UTR) of the human genome. Seven of nine target/nontarget genes of tRFs confirmed by reporter assay were predicted. We also validated the predictions via quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Thirteen potential target genes from the top of the predictions were significantly down-regulated at the mRNA levels by overexpression of the tRFs (tRF-3001a, tRF-3003a or tRF-3009a). Conclusions Predictions can be obtained online, tRFTars, freely available at http://trftars.cmuzhenninglab.org:3838/tar/, which is the first tool to predict targets of tRFs in humans with a user-friendly interface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiong Xiao
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Peng Gao
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Xuanzhang Huang
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Xiaowan Chen
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Quan Chen
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Xinger Lv
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Yu Fu
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China
| | - Yongxi Song
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China.
| | - Zhenning Wang
- Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China.
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11
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Claeys A, Luijts T, Marchal K, Van den Eynden J. Low immunogenicity of common cancer hot spot mutations resulting in false immunogenic selection signals. PLoS Genet 2021; 17:e1009368. [PMID: 33556087 PMCID: PMC7895404 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2020] [Revised: 02/19/2021] [Accepted: 01/13/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Cancer is driven by somatic mutations that result in a cellular fitness advantage. This selective advantage is expected to be counterbalanced by the immune system when these driver mutations simultaneously lead to the generation of neoantigens, novel peptides that are presented at the cancer cell membrane via HLA molecules from the MHC complex. The presentability of these peptides is determined by a patient’s MHC genotype and it has been suggested that this results in MHC genotype-specific restrictions of the oncogenic mutational landscape. Here, we generated a set of virtual patients, each with an identical and prototypical MHC genotype, and show that the earlier reported HLA affinity differences between observed and unobserved mutations are unrelated to MHC genotype variation. We demonstrate how these differences are secondary to high frequencies of 13 hot spot driver mutations in 6 different genes. Several oncogenic mechanisms were identified that lower the peptides’ HLA affinity, including phospho-mimicking substitutions in BRAF, destabilizing tyrosine mutations in TP53 and glycine-rich mutational contexts in the GTP-binding KRAS domain. In line with our earlier findings, our results emphasize that HLA affinity predictions are easily misinterpreted when studying immunogenic selection processes. The diagnosis of a malignant tumor is preceded by a long process of tumor evolution, characterized by the gradual accumulation of driver mutations, genomic alterations that give cancer cells their typical growth advantage. This process is controlled by the immune system and understanding tumor-immune interactions is critical for the development of new anti-cancer therapies. Immune cells mainly respond to neoantigens, small mutated peptides that are presented at the cancer cell membrane by binding to the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). MHC genes are highly variable between individuals and it was recently suggested that an individual’s MHC genotype determines cancer susceptibility. In this study we used a computational approach and simulated a set of virtual cancer patients, based on the expected driver mutation frequencies and each with a similar prototypical MHC genotype. Using these simulations, we show that the earlier perceived signals are unrelated to the underlying MHC genotypes, but rather secondary to high frequencies of 13 driver mutations in 6 cancer genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arne Claeys
- Department of Human Structure and Repair, Anatomy and Embryology Unit, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Tom Luijts
- Department of Human Structure and Repair, Anatomy and Embryology Unit, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Kathleen Marchal
- Department of Information Technology, IDLab, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jimmy Van den Eynden
- Department of Human Structure and Repair, Anatomy and Embryology Unit, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- * E-mail:
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12
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Domcke S, Hill AJ, Daza RM, Cao J, O'Day DR, Pliner HA, Aldinger KA, Pokholok D, Zhang F, Milbank JH, Zager MA, Glass IA, Steemers FJ, Doherty D, Trapnell C, Cusanovich DA, Shendure J. A human cell atlas of fetal chromatin accessibility. Science 2020; 370:eaba7612. [PMID: 33184180 PMCID: PMC7785298 DOI: 10.1126/science.aba7612] [Citation(s) in RCA: 181] [Impact Index Per Article: 45.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2020] [Accepted: 09/10/2020] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
The chromatin landscape underlying the specification of human cell types is of fundamental interest. We generated human cell atlases of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in fetal tissues. For chromatin accessibility, we devised a three-level combinatorial indexing assay and applied it to 53 samples representing 15 organs, profiling ~800,000 single cells. We leveraged cell types defined by gene expression to annotate these data and cataloged hundreds of thousands of candidate regulatory elements that exhibit cell type-specific chromatin accessibility. We investigated the properties of lineage-specific transcription factors (such as POU2F1 in neurons), organ-specific specializations of broadly distributed cell types (such as blood and endothelial), and cell type-specific enrichments of complex trait heritability. These data represent a rich resource for the exploration of in vivo human gene regulation in diverse tissues and cell types.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia Domcke
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Andrew J Hill
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Riza M Daza
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Junyue Cao
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Diana R O'Day
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Hannah A Pliner
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Kimberly A Aldinger
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Center for Integrative Brain Research, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | | | - Jennifer H Milbank
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Michael A Zager
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Center for Data Visualization, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Ian A Glass
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Center for Integrative Brain Research, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | - Dan Doherty
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Center for Integrative Brain Research, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Cole Trapnell
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Darren A Cusanovich
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
- Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Jay Shendure
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing, Seattle, WA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
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13
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Hartman RJG, Kapteijn DMC, Haitjema S, Bekker MN, Mokry M, Pasterkamp G, Civelek M, den Ruijter HM. Intrinsic transcriptomic sex differences in human endothelial cells at birth and in adults are associated with coronary artery disease targets. Sci Rep 2020; 10:12367. [PMID: 32704153 PMCID: PMC7378217 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-69451-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/02/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Sex differences in endothelial cell (EC) biology may reflect intrinsic differences driven by chromosomes or sex steroid exposure and gender differences accumulated over life. We analysed EC gene expression data from boy-girl twins at birth and in non-twin adults to detect sex differences at different stages of life, and show that 14-25% of the EC transcriptome is sex-biased. By combining data from both stages of life, we identified sex differences that are present at birth and maintained throughout life, and those that are acquired over life. Promisingly, we found that genes that present with an acquired sex difference in ECs are more likely to be targets of sex steroids. Annotating both gene sets with data from multiple genome-wide association studies (GWAS) revealed that genes with an intrinsic sex difference in ECs are enriched for coronary artery disease GWAS hits. This study underscores the need for treating sex as a biological variable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robin J G Hartman
- Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Daniek M C Kapteijn
- Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Saskia Haitjema
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Mireille N Bekker
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Michal Mokry
- Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Gerard Pasterkamp
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Mete Civelek
- Center for Public Health Genomics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, USA
| | - Hester M den Ruijter
- Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
- Division of Heart and Lungs, Department of Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, PO Box 85500, 3508GA, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
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14
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Abstract
Evolutionary changes in gene expression are often driven by gains and losses of cis-regulatory elements (CREs). The dynamics of CRE evolution can be examined using multispecies epigenomic data, but so far such analyses have generally been descriptive and model-free. Here, we introduce a probabilistic modeling framework for the evolution of CREs that operates directly on raw chromatin immunoprecipitation and sequencing (ChIP-seq) data and fully considers the phylogenetic relationships among species. Our framework includes a phylogenetic hidden Markov model, called epiPhyloHMM, for identifying the locations of multiply aligned CREs, and a combined phylogenetic and generalized linear model, called phyloGLM, for accounting for the influence of a rich set of genomic features in describing their evolutionary dynamics. We apply these methods to previously published ChIP-seq data for the H3K4me3 and H3K27ac histone modifications in liver tissue from nine mammals. We find that enhancers are gained and lost during mammalian evolution at about twice the rate of promoters, and that turnover rates are negatively correlated with DNA sequence conservation, expression level, and tissue breadth, and positively correlated with distance from the transcription start site, consistent with previous findings. In addition, we find that the predicted dosage sensitivity of target genes positively correlates with DNA sequence constraint in CREs but not with turnover rates, perhaps owing to differences in the effect sizes of the relevant mutations. Altogether, our probabilistic modeling framework enables a variety of powerful new analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Noah Dukler
- Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
- Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
| | - Yi-Fei Huang
- Department of Biology and Huck Institute of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
| | - Adam Siepel
- Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
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15
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Ruiz-Orera J, Albà MM. Conserved regions in long non-coding RNAs contain abundant translation and protein-RNA interaction signatures. NAR Genom Bioinform 2019; 1:e2. [PMID: 33575549 PMCID: PMC7671363 DOI: 10.1093/nargab/lqz002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2019] [Revised: 06/14/2019] [Accepted: 07/04/2019] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
The mammalian transcriptome includes thousands of transcripts that do not correspond to annotated protein-coding genes and that are known as long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). A handful of lncRNAs have well-characterized regulatory functions but the biological significance of the majority of them is not well understood. LncRNAs that are conserved between mice and humans are likely to be enriched in functional sequences. Here, we investigate the presence of different types of ribosome profiling signatures in lncRNAs and how they relate to sequence conservation. We find that lncRNA-conserved regions contain three times more ORFs with translation evidence than non-conserved ones, and identify nine cases that display significant sequence constraints at the amino acid sequence level. The study also reveals that conserved regions in intergenic lncRNAs are significantly enriched in protein–RNA interaction signatures when compared to non-conserved ones; this includes sites in well-characterized lncRNAs, such as Cyrano, Malat1, Neat1 and Meg3, as well as in tens of lncRNAs of unknown function. This work illustrates how the analysis of ribosome profiling data coupled with evolutionary analysis provides new opportunities to explore the lncRNA functional landscape.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jorge Ruiz-Orera
- Evolutionary Genomics Group, Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics, Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003, Spain
| | - M Mar Albà
- Evolutionary Genomics Group, Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics, Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003, Spain.,Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona 08010, Spain
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