scholarly journals Pioneer factor Foxa2 enables ligand-dependent activation of LXRα

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Kain ◽  
Xiaolong Wei ◽  
Andrew J. Price ◽  
Claire Woods ◽  
Irina M. Bochkis

SummaryType II nuclear hormone receptors, such as FXR, LXR, and PPAR, which function in glucose and lipid metabolism and serve as drug targets for metabolic diseases, are permanently positioned in the nucleus regardless of the ligand status. Ligand activation of these receptors is thought to occur by co-repressor/co-activator exchange, followed by initiation of transcription. However, recent genome-wide location analysis showed that LXRα and PPARα binding in the liver is largely ligand-dependent. We hypothesized that pioneer factor Foxa2 evicts nucleosomes to enable ligand-dependent receptor binding. We show that chromatin accessibility, LXRα occupancy, and LXRα-dependent gene expression upon ligand activation require Foxa2. Unexpectedly, Foxa2 occupancy is drastically increased when LXRα is bound by an agonist. Our results suggest that Foxa2 and LXRα bind DNA as an interdependent complex during ligand activation. Our model requiring pioneering activity for ligand activation challenges the existing co-factor exchange mechanism and expands current understanding of nuclear receptor biology, suggesting that chromatin accessibility needs to be considered in design of drugs targeting nuclear receptors.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Erceg ◽  
Jumana AlHaj Abed ◽  
Anton Goloborodko ◽  
Bryan R. Lajoie ◽  
Geoffrey Fudenberg ◽  
...  

AbstractGenome organization involves cis and trans chromosomal interactions, both implicated in gene regulation, development, and disease. Here, we focused on trans interactions in Drosophila, where homologous chromosomes are paired in somatic cells from embryogenesis through adulthood. We first addressed the long-standing question of whether pairing extends genome-wide and, to this end, developed a haplotype-resolved Hi-C approach that uses a new strategy to minimize homolog misassignment and thus robustly distinguish trans-homolog from cis contacts. This approach revealed striking genome-wide pairing in Drosophila embryos. Moreover, we discovered pairing to be surprisingly structured, with trans-homolog domains and interaction peaks, many coinciding with the positions of analogous cis features. We also found a significant correlation between pairing and the chromatin accessibility mediated by the pioneer factor Zelda. Our findings reveal a complex, highly structured organization underlying homolog pairing, first discovered more than a century ago.One Sentence SummaryA robust approach for haplotype-resolved Hi-C reveals highly-structured homolog pairing in early stage Drosophila embryos.


eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodora Koromila ◽  
Fan Gao ◽  
Yasuno Iwasaki ◽  
Peng He ◽  
Lior Pachter ◽  
...  

Pioneer factors such as Zelda (Zld) help initiate zygotic transcription in Drosophila early embryos, but whether other factors support this dynamic process is unclear. Odd-paired (Opa), a zinc-finger transcription factor expressed at cellularization, controls the transition of genes from pair-rule to segmental patterns along the anterior-posterior axis. Finding that Opa also regulates expression through enhancer sog_Distal along the dorso-ventral axis, we hypothesized Opa’s role is more general. Chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP-seq) confirmed its in vivo binding to sog_Distal but also identified widespread binding throughout the genome, comparable to Zld. Furthermore, chromatin assays (ATAC-seq) demonstrate that Opa, like Zld, influences chromatin accessibility genome-wide at cellularization, suggesting both are pioneer factors with common as well as distinct targets. Lastly, embryos lacking opa exhibit widespread, late patterning defects spanning both axes. Collectively, these data suggest Opa is a general timing factor and likely late-acting pioneer factor that drives a secondary wave of zygotic gene expression.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukulika Ray ◽  
Ashley Mae Conard ◽  
Jennifer Urban ◽  
Erica Larschan

Maternally deposited RNAs and proteins play a crucial role in initiating zygotic transcription during early embryonic development. However, the mechanisms by which maternal factors regulate zygotic transcript diversity early in development remain poorly understood. Furthermore, how early in development sex-specific transcript diversity occurs is not known genome-wide in any organism. Here, we determine that sex-specific transcript diversity occurs much earlier in development than previously thought in Drosophila, concurrent with Zygotic genome activation (ZGA). We use genetic, biochemical, and genomic approaches to demonstrate that the essential maternally-deposited pioneer factor CLAMP (Chromatin linked adapter for MSL proteins) is a key regulator of sex-specific transcript diversity in the early embryo via the following mechanisms: 1) In both sexes, CLAMP directly binds to the gene bodies of female and male sex-specifically spliced genes. 2) In females, CLAMP modulates chromatin accessibility of an alternatively-spliced exon within Sex-lethal, the master regulator of sex determination, to promote protein production. 3) In males, CLAMP regulates Maleless (MLE) distribution, a spliceosome component to prevent aberrant sex-specific splicing. Thus, we demonstrate for the first time how a maternal factor regulates early zygotic transcriptome diversity sex-specifically. We also developed a new tool to measure how splicing changes over time called time2splice.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodora Koromila ◽  
Fan Gao ◽  
Yasuno Iwasaki ◽  
Peng He ◽  
Lior Pachter ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTPioneer factors such as Zelda help initiate zygotic transcription in Drosophila early embryos, but whether other factors support this dynamic process is unclear. Odd-paired (Opa), a zinc-finger transcription factor expressed at cellularization, controls transition of genes from pair-rule to segmental patterns along the anterior-posterior axis. Finding that Opa also regulates late expression through enhancer sog_Distal, along the dorso-ventral axis, we hypothesized that Opa acts as a general timing factor. Chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP-seq) confirmed Opa in vivo binding to sog_Distal but also identified widespread binding throughout the genome, comparable to Zelda. Furthermore, chromatin assays (ATAC-seq) demonstrate that Opa, like Zelda, influences chromatin accessibility genome-wide, suggesting both are pioneer factors with common as well as distinct targets. Lastly, embryos lacking opa exhibit widespread, late patterning defects spanning both axes. Collectively, these data suggest Opa, a general timing factor and likely a late-acting pioneer factor, heralds in a secondary wave of zygotic gene expression.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bieke Decaesteker ◽  
Amber Louwagie ◽  
Siebe Loontiens ◽  
Fanny De Vloed ◽  
Juliette Roels ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe pediatric extra-cranial tumor neuroblastoma (NB) is characterised by a low mutation burden while copy number alterations are present in most high-risk cases. We identified SOX11 as a strong lineage dependency transcription factor in adrenergic NB based on recurrent chromosome 2p focal gains and amplifications, its specific expression in the normal sympatho-adrenal lineage and adrenergic NBs and its regulation by multiple adrenergic specific cis-interacting (super-)enhancers. Adrenergic NBs are strongly dependent on high SOX11 expression levels for growth and proliferation. Through genome-wide DNA-binding and transcriptome analysis, we identified and validated functional SOX11 target genes, several of which implicated in chromatin remodeling and epigenetic modification. SOX11 controls chromatin accessibility predominantly affecting distal adrenergic lineage-specific enhancers marked by binding sites of the adrenergic core regulatory circuitry. During normal sympathoblast differentiation we find expression of SOX11 prior to members of the adrenergic core regulatory circuitry. Given the broad control of SOX11 of multiple epigenetic regulatory complexes and its presumed pioneer factor function, we propose that adrenergic NB cells have co-opted the normal role of SOX11 as a crucial regulator of chromatin accessibility and cell identity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 2936-2937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Peat ◽  
William Jones ◽  
Michael Nuhn ◽  
José Carlos Marugán ◽  
William Newell ◽  
...  

Abstract Motivation Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a powerful method to detect even weak associations between variants and phenotypes; however, many of the identified associated variants are in non-coding regions, and presumably influence gene expression regulation. Identifying potential drug targets, i.e. causal protein-coding genes, therefore, requires crossing the genetics results with functional data. Results We present a novel data integration pipeline that analyses GWAS results in the light of experimental epigenetic and cis-regulatory datasets, such as ChIP-Seq, Promoter-Capture Hi-C or eQTL, and presents them in a single report, which can be used for inferring likely causal genes. This pipeline was then fed into an interactive data resource. Availability and implementation The analysis code is available at www.github.com/Ensembl/postgap and the interactive data browser at postgwas.opentargets.io.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabell Kaczmarek ◽  
Tomáš Suchý ◽  
Simone Prömel ◽  
Torsten Schöneberg ◽  
Ines Liebscher ◽  
...  

Abstract G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) modulate a variety of physiological functions and have been proven to be outstanding drug targets. However, approximately one-third of all non-olfactory GPCRs are still orphans in respect to their signal transduction and physiological functions. Receptors of the class of Adhesion GPCRs (aGPCRs) are among these orphan receptors. They are characterized by unique features in their structure and tissue-specific expression, which yields them interesting candidates for deorphanization and testing as potential therapeutic targets. Capable of G-protein coupling and non-G protein-mediated function, aGPCRs may extend our repertoire of influencing physiological function. Besides their described significance in the immune and central nervous systems, growing evidence indicates a high importance of these receptors in metabolic tissue. RNAseq analyses revealed high expression of several aGPCRs in pancreatic islets, adipose tissue, liver, and intestine but also in neurons governing food intake. In this review, we focus on aGPCRs and their function in regulating metabolic pathways. Based on current knowledge, this receptor class represents high potential for future pharmacological approaches addressing obesity and other metabolic diseases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Pierce ◽  
Jeffrey M. Granja ◽  
William J. Greenleaf

AbstractChromatin accessibility profiling can identify putative regulatory regions genome wide; however, pooled single-cell methods for assessing the effects of regulatory perturbations on accessibility are limited. Here, we report a modified droplet-based single-cell ATAC-seq protocol for perturbing and evaluating dynamic single-cell epigenetic states. This method (Spear-ATAC) enables simultaneous read-out of chromatin accessibility profiles and integrated sgRNA spacer sequences from thousands of individual cells at once. Spear-ATAC profiling of 104,592 cells representing 414 sgRNA knock-down populations reveals the temporal dynamics of epigenetic responses to regulatory perturbations in cancer cells and the associations between transcription factor binding profiles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianan Zhao ◽  
Yu Zhao ◽  
Yiyang Hu ◽  
Jinghua Peng

AbstractIn the past decade, G protein-coupled receptors have emerged as drug targets, and their physiological and pathological effects have been extensively studied. Among these receptors, GPR119 is expressed in multiple organs, including the liver. It can be activated by a variety of endogenous and exogenous ligands. After GPR119 is activated, the cell secretes a variety of incretins, including glucagon-like peptide-1 and glucagon-like peptide-2, which may attenuate the metabolic dysfunction associated with fatty liver disease, including improving glucose and lipid metabolism, inhibiting inflammation, reducing appetite, and regulating the intestinal microbial system. GPR119 has been a potential therapeutic target for diabetes mellitus type 2 for many years, but its role in metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease deserves further attention. In this review, we discuss relevant research and current progress in the physiology and pharmacology of the GPR119/incretin axis and speculate on the potential therapeutic role of this axis in metabolic dysfunction associated with fatty liver disease, which provides guidance for transforming experimental research into clinical applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Panyard ◽  
Kyeong Mo Kim ◽  
Burcu F. Darst ◽  
Yuetiva K. Deming ◽  
Xiaoyuan Zhong ◽  
...  

AbstractThe study of metabolomics and disease has enabled the discovery of new risk factors, diagnostic markers, and drug targets. For neurological and psychiatric phenotypes, the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is of particular importance. However, the CSF metabolome is difficult to study on a large scale due to the relative complexity of the procedure needed to collect the fluid. Here, we present a metabolome-wide association study (MWAS), which uses genetic and metabolomic data to impute metabolites into large samples with genome-wide association summary statistics. We conduct a metabolome-wide, genome-wide association analysis with 338 CSF metabolites, identifying 16 genotype-metabolite associations (metabolite quantitative trait loci, or mQTLs). We then build prediction models for all available CSF metabolites and test for associations with 27 neurological and psychiatric phenotypes, identifying 19 significant CSF metabolite-phenotype associations. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of MWAS to study omic data in scarce sample types.


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