scholarly journals Permissive epigenetic landscape facilitates distinct transcriptional signatures of activating transcription factor 6 in the liver

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana Ramdas Nair ◽  
Priyanka Lakhiani ◽  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Filippo Macchi ◽  
Kirsten C. Sadler

ABSTRACTProteostatic stress initiates a transcriptional response that is unique to the stress condition, yet the regulatory mechanisms underlying the distinct gene expression patterns observed in stressed cells remains unknown. Using a functional genomic approach, we investigated how activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6), a key transcription factor in the unfolded protein response (UPR), regulates target genes. We first designed a computational strategy to define Atf6 target genes based on the evolutionary conservation of predicted ATF6 binding in gene promoters, identifying 652 conserved putative Atf6 target (CPAT) genes. CPATs were overrepresented for genes functioning in the UPR, however, the majority functioned in cellular processes unrelated to proteostasis, including small molecule metabolism and development. Functional studies of stress-independent and toxicant based Atf6 activation in zebrafish livers showed that the pattern of CPAT expression in response to Atf6 overexpression, alcohol and arsenic was unique. Only 34 CPATs were differentially expressed in all conditions, indicating that Atf6 is sufficient to regulate a small subset of CPATs. Blocking Atf6 using Ceapins in zebrafish demonstrated that Atf6 is necessary for activation of these genes in response to arsenic. We investigated CPAT during physiologically mediated hepatocyte stress using liver regeneration in mice as a model. Over half of all CPATs were differentially expressed during this process. This was attributed to the permissive chromatin environment in quiescent livers on the promoters of these genes, characterized by the absence of H3K27me3 and enrichment of H3K4me3. Taken together, these data uncover a complex transcriptional response to Atf6 activation and implicate a permissive epigenome as a mechanism by which distinct transcriptional responses are regulated by Atf6.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5191
Author(s):  
Luming Yao ◽  
Biyun Yang ◽  
Xiaohong Ma ◽  
Shuangshuang Wang ◽  
Zhe Guan ◽  
...  

Soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura) is one of the major limiting factors in soybean production. The mechanism of aphid resistance in soybean remains enigmatic as little information is available about the different mechanisms of antibiosis and antixenosis. Here, we used genome-wide gene expression profiling of aphid susceptible, antibiotic, and antixenotic genotypes to investigate the underlying aphid–plant interaction mechanisms. The high expression correlation between infested and non-infested genotypes indicated that the response to aphid was controlled by a small subset of genes. Plant response to aphid infestation was faster in antibiotic genotype and the interaction in antixenotic genotype was moderation. The expression patterns of transcription factor genes in susceptible and antixenotic genotypes clustered together and were distant from those of antibiotic genotypes. Among them APETALA 2/ethylene response factors (AP2/ERF), v-myb avian myeloblastosis viral oncogene homolog (MYB), and the transcription factor contained conserved WRKYGQK domain (WRKY) were proposed to play dominant roles. The jasmonic acid-responsive pathway was dominant in aphid–soybean interaction, and salicylic acid pathway played an important role in antibiotic genotype. Callose deposition was more rapid and efficient in antibiotic genotype, while reactive oxygen species were not involved in the response to aphid attack in resistant genotypes. Our study helps to uncover important genes associated with aphid-attack response in soybean genotypes expressing antibiosis and antixenosis.


2012 ◽  
Vol 287 (42) ◽  
pp. 35709-35721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liangtao Li ◽  
Ren Miao ◽  
Sophie Bertram ◽  
Xuan Jia ◽  
Diane M. Ward ◽  
...  

Yeast respond to increased cytosolic iron by activating the transcription factor Yap5 increasing transcription of CCC1, which encodes a vacuolar iron importer. Using a genetic screen to identify genes involved in Yap5 iron sensing, we discovered that a mutation in SSQ1, which encodes a mitochondrial chaperone involved in iron-sulfur cluster synthesis, prevented expression of Yap5 target genes. We demonstrated that mutation or reduced expression of other genes involved in mitochondrial iron-sulfur cluster synthesis (YFH1, ISU1) prevented induction of the Yap5 response. We took advantage of the iron-dependent catalytic activity of Pseudaminobacter salicylatoxidans gentisate 1,2-dioxygenase expressed in yeast to measure changes in cytosolic iron. We determined that reductions in iron-sulfur cluster synthesis did not affect the activity of cytosolic gentisate 1,2-dioxygenase. We show that loss of activity of the cytosolic iron-sulfur cluster assembly complex proteins or deletion of cytosolic glutaredoxins did not reduce expression of Yap5 target genes. These results suggest that the high iron transcriptional response, as well as the low iron transcriptional response, senses iron-sulfur clusters.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peirong Li ◽  
Tongbing Su ◽  
Deshuang Zhang ◽  
Weihong Wang ◽  
Xiaoyun Xin ◽  
...  

AbstractHeterosis is a complex phenomenon in which hybrids show better phenotypic characteristics than their parents do. Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. spp. pekinensis) is a popular leafy crop species, hybrids of which are widely used in commercial production; however, the molecular basis of heterosis for biomass of Chinese cabbage is poorly understood. We characterized heterosis in a Chinese cabbage F1 hybrid cultivar and its parental lines from the seedling stage to the heading stage; marked heterosis of leaf weight and biomass yield were observed. Small RNA sequencing revealed 63 and 50 differentially expressed microRNAs (DEMs) at the seedling and early-heading stages, respectively. The expression levels of the majority of miRNA clusters in the F1 hybrid were lower than the mid-parent values (MPVs). Using degradome sequencing, we identified 1,819 miRNA target genes. Gene ontology (GO) analyses demonstrated that the target genes of the MPV-DEMs and low parental expression level dominance (ELD) miRNAs were significantly enriched in leaf morphogenesis, leaf development, and leaf shaping. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the expression levels of photosynthesis and chlorophyll synthesis-related MPV-DEGs (differentially expressed genes) were significantly different in the F1 hybrid compared to the parental lines, resulting in increased photosynthesis capacity and chlorophyll content in the former. Furthermore, expression of genes known to regulate leaf development was also observed at the seedling stage. Arabidopsis plants overexpressing BrGRF4.2 and bra-miR396 presented increased and decreased leaf sizes, respectively. These results provide new insight into the regulation of target genes and miRNA expression patterns in leaf size and heterosis for biomass of B. rapa.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1632) ◽  
pp. 20130018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea I. Ramos ◽  
Scott Barolo

In the era of functional genomics, the role of transcription factor (TF)–DNA binding affinity is of increasing interest: for example, it has recently been proposed that low-affinity genomic binding events, though frequent, are functionally irrelevant. Here, we investigate the role of binding site affinity in the transcriptional interpretation of Hedgehog (Hh) morphogen gradients . We noted that enhancers of several Hh-responsive Drosophila genes have low predicted affinity for Ci, the Gli family TF that transduces Hh signalling in the fly. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, improving the affinity of Ci/Gli sites in enhancers of dpp , wingless and stripe , by transplanting optimal sites from the patched gene, did not result in ectopic responses to Hh signalling. Instead, we found that these enhancers require low-affinity binding sites for normal activation in regions of relatively low signalling. When Ci/Gli sites in these enhancers were altered to improve their binding affinity, we observed patterning defects in the transcriptional response that are consistent with a switch from Ci-mediated activation to Ci-mediated repression. Synthetic transgenic reporters containing isolated Ci/Gli sites confirmed this finding in imaginal discs. We propose that the requirement for gene activation by Ci in the regions of low-to-moderate Hh signalling results in evolutionary pressure favouring weak binding sites in enhancers of certain Hh target genes.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adelaide Tovar ◽  
Gregory J. Smith ◽  
Joseph M. Thomas ◽  
Jack R. Harkema ◽  
Samir N. P. Kelada

AbstractExposure to ambient ozone (O3) pollution causes airway inflammation, epithelial injury, and decreased lung function. Long-term exposure is associated with increased mortality and exacerbations of respiratory conditions. While the adverse health effects of O3 exposure have been thoroughly described, less is known about the molecular processes that drive these outcomes. The aim of this study was to describe the cellular and molecular alterations observed in murine airways after exposure to either 1 or 2 ppm O3. After exposing adult, female C57BL/6J mice to filtered air, 1 or 2 ppm O3 for 3 hours, we assessed hallmark responses including airway inflammatory cell counts, epithelial permeability, cytokine secretion, and morphological alterations of the large airways. Further, we performed RNA-seq to profile gene expression in two critical tissues involved in O3 responses: conducting airways (CA) and airway macrophages (AM). We observed a concentration-dependent increase in airway inflammation and injury, and a large number of genes were differentially expressed in both target tissues at both concentrations of O3. Genes that were differentially expressed in CA were generally associated with barrier function, detoxification processes, and cellular proliferation. The differentially expressed genes in AM were associated with innate immune signaling, cytokine production, and extracellular matrix remodeling. Overall, our study has described transcriptional responses to acute O3 exposure, revealing both shared and unique gene expression patterns across multiple concentrations of O3 and in two important O3-responsive tissues. These profiles provide broad mechanistic insight into pulmonary O3 toxicity, and reveal a variety of targets for refined follow-up studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 5419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gao-Feng Zhou ◽  
Li-Ping Zhang ◽  
Bi-Xian Li ◽  
Ou Sheng ◽  
Qing-Jiang Wei ◽  
...  

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in plant growth and stress responses. As a dominant abiotic stress factor in soil, boron (B) deficiency stress has impacted the growth and development of citrus in the red soil region of southern China. In the present work, we performed a genome-wide identification and characterization of lncRNAs in response to B deficiency stress in the leaves of trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata), an important rootstock of citrus. A total of 2101 unique lncRNAs and 24,534 mRNAs were predicted. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) experiments were performed for a total of 16 random mRNAs and lncRNAs to validate their existence and expression patterns. Expression profiling of the leaves of trifoliate orange under B deficiency stress identified 729 up-regulated and 721 down-regulated lncRNAs, and 8419 up-regulated and 8395 down-regulated mRNAs. Further analysis showed that a total of 84 differentially expressed lncRNAs (DELs) were up-regulated and 31 were down-regulated, where the number of up-regulated DELs was 2.71-fold that of down-regulated. A similar trend was also observed in differentially expressed mRNAs (DEMs, 4.21-fold). Functional annotation of these DEMs was performed using Gene Ontology (GO) and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses, and the results demonstrated an enrichment of the categories of the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites (including phenylpropanoid biosynthesis/lignin biosynthesis), plant hormone signal transduction and the calcium signaling pathway. LncRNA target gene enrichment identified several target genes that were involved in plant hormones, and the expression of lncRNAs and their target genes was significantly influenced. Therefore, our results suggest that lncRNAs can regulate the metabolism and signal transduction of plant hormones, which play an important role in the responses of citrus plants to B deficiency stress. Co-expression network analysis indicated that 468 significantly differentially expressed genes may be potential targets of 90 lncRNAs, and a total of 838 matched lncRNA-mRNA pairs were identified. In summary, our data provides a rich resource of candidate lncRNAs and mRNAs, as well as their related pathways, thereby improving our understanding of the role of lncRNAs in response to B deficiency stress, and in symptom formation caused by B deficiency in the leaves of trifoliate orange.


Antioxidants ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-ping Zhu ◽  
Ze Zheng ◽  
Shaofan Hu ◽  
Xufang Ru ◽  
Zhuo Fan ◽  
...  

The water-soluble Nrf2 (nuclear factor, erythroid 2-like 2, also called Nfe2l2) is accepted as a master regulator of antioxidant responses to cellular stress, and it was also identified as a direct target of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-anchored PERK (protein kinase RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase). However, the membrane-bound Nrf1 (nuclear factor, erythroid 2-like 1, also called Nfe2l1) response to ER stress remains elusive. Herein, we report a unity of opposites between these two antioxidant transcription factors, Nrf1 and Nrf2, in coordinating distinct cellular responses to the ER stressor tunicamycin (TU). The TU-inducible transcription of Nrf1 and Nrf2, as well as GCLM (glutamate cysteine ligase modifier subunit) and HO-1 (heme oxygenase 1), was accompanied by activation of ER stress signaling networks. Notably, the unfolded protein response (UPR) mediated by ATF6 (activating transcription factor 6), IRE1 (inositol requiring enzyme 1) and PERK was significantly suppressed by Nrf1α-specific knockout, but hyper-expression of Nrf2 and its target genes GCLM and HO-1 has retained in Nrf1α−/− cells. By contrast, Nrf2−/−ΔTA cells with genomic deletion of its transactivation (TA) domain resulted in significant decreases of GCLM, HO-1 and Nrf1; this was accompanied by partial decreases of IRE1 and ATF6, rather than PERK, but with an increase of ATF4 (activating transcription factor 4). Interestingly, Nrf1 glycosylation and its trans-activity to mediate the transcriptional expression of the 26S proteasomal subunits, were repressed by TU. This inhibitory effect was enhanced by Nrf1α−/− and Nrf2−/−ΔTA, but not by a constitutive activator caNrf2ΔN (that increased abundances of the non-glycosylated and processed Nrf1). Furthermore, caNrf2ΔN also enhanced induction of PERK and IRE1 by TU, but reduced expression of ATF4 and HO-1. Thus, it is inferred that such distinct roles of Nrf1 and Nrf2 are unified to maintain cell homeostasis by a series of coordinated ER-to-nuclear signaling responses to TU. Nrf1α (i.e., a full-length form) acts in a cell-autonomous manner to determine the transcription of most of UPR-target genes, albeit Nrf2 is also partially involved in this process. Consistently, transactivation of ARE (antioxidant response element)-driven BIP (binding immunoglobulin protein)-, PERK- and XBP1 (X-box binding protein 1)-Luc reporter genes was mediated directly by Nrf1 and/or Nrf2. Interestingly, Nrf1α is more potent than Nrf2 at mediating the cytoprotective responses against the cytotoxicity of TU alone or plus tBHQ (tert-butylhydroquinone). This is also further supported by the evidence that the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are increased in Nrf1α−/− cells, but rather are, to our surprise, decreased in Nrf2−/−ΔTA cells.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 624
Author(s):  
Kai Xing ◽  
Xitong Zhao ◽  
Yibing Liu ◽  
Fengxia Zhang ◽  
Zhen Tan ◽  
...  

Fatty traits are very important in pig production. However, the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in fat deposition is not clearly understood. In this study, we compared adipose miRNAs from three full-sibling pairs of female Landrace pigs, with high and low backfat thickness, to investigate the associated regulatory network. We obtained an average of 17.29 million raw reads from six libraries, 62.27% of which mapped to the pig reference genome. A total of 318 pig miRNAs were detected among the samples. Among them, 18 miRNAs were differentially expressed (p-value < 0.05, |log2fold change| ≥ 1) between the high and low backfat groups; 6 were up-regulated and 12 were down-regulated. Functional enrichment of the predicted target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs, indicated that these miRNAs were involved mainly in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and glycan biosynthesis and metabolism. Comprehensive analysis of the mRNA and miRNA transcriptomes revealed possible regulatory relationships for fat deposition. Negatively correlated mRNA–miRNA pairs included miR-137–PPARGC1A, miR-141–FASN, and miR-122-5p–PKM, indicating these interactions may be key regulators of fat deposition. Our findings provide important insights into miRNA expression patterns in the backfat tissue of pig and new insights into the regulatory mechanisms of fat deposition in pig.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 119126
Author(s):  
Roberto Rodríguez-Morales ◽  
Viveca Vélez-Negrón ◽  
Aranza Torrado-Tapias ◽  
Gaurav Varshney ◽  
Martine Behra

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Li ◽  
Arthur C. K. Chung ◽  
Xueqing Yu ◽  
Hui Y. Lan

Rapid growth of diabetes and diabetic kidney disease exerts a great burden on society. Owing to the lack of effective treatments for diabetic kidney disease, treatment relies on drugs that either reduces its progression or involve renal replacement therapies, such as dialysis and kidney transplantation. It is urgent to search for biomarkers for early diagnosis and effective therapy. The discovery of microRNAs had lead to a new era of post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. Studies from cells, experimental animal models and patients under diabetic conditions demonstrate that expression patterns of microRNAs are altered during the progression of diabetic kidney disease. Functional studies indicate that the ability of microRNAs to bind 3′ untranslated region of messenger RNA not only shows their capability to regulate expression of target genes, but also their therapeutic potential to diabetic kidney disease. The presence of microRNAs in plasma, serum, and urine has been shown to be possible biomarkers in diabetic kidney disease. Therefore, identification of the pathogenic role of microRNAs possesses an important clinical impact in terms of prevention and treatment of progression in diabetic kidney disease because it allows us to design novel and specific therapies and diagnostic tools for diabetic kidney disease.


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