Chromatin and epigenetics Flashcards
How can histones be removed?
Adding high concentration of salt (2M NaCl). Leaves the nuclear scaffold and DNA loops.
What is the structure of histones?
H3/H4 tetramer + 2 H2a/H2b dimers with DNA wrapped around makes a nucleosome
Histones are small, positively charged (for DNA binding) proteins. Each core histone dimer has 6 DNA binding surfaces that organise 3 DNA turns - the histone octamer organises 14bp of DNA in 1.75 helical turns of DNA.
N terminal and C terminal extensions can contact other nucleosomes (aids condensing of DNA) and be modified.
What is a chromatosome?
Core histone octamer plus one linker histone (e.g. H1) and 2 full turns of DNA. The linker histone tightens the angles of the entry/exit of the DNA
What is the nucleosome structure of chromatin fibres?
Positively charged N termini of histone binds DNA on neighbouring nucleosomes (and other histones)
High levels of histone H1
Hypoacetylated
Solenoid structure (30nm fibre)
What is heterochromatin?
Generally repressive. DNA is highly condensed, inactive. Found near centromeres and telomeres. Replicates late.
What is euchromatin?
Contains active genes. Extended structure, is digested first by DNase, replicates early.
How can chromatin be derepressed?
Remodelling factors (ATP dependent)
Histone modifying enzymes
Facilitators of elongation
Note: not being activated, just being dereppresed. Chromatin environment can prevent transcription. In vitro, naked DNA + basal transcription factors and RNA pol II gives efficient transcription - chromatin represses this in vivo.
What is FACT?
Facilitates Chromatin Transcription. A protein that moves with the polymerase and loosens nucleosomes in front of it, replacing once transcription has occurred.
How was FACT identified?
Chromatin was assembled on a promoter template in vitro (forms a random array on template)
An activator was added to allow remodelling (positions histones for good transcription)
The remodelled template was purified by gel filtration
The components/nuclear were added back and checked for initiation and elongation.
Found that the purified system could initiate on a chromatin template, but pol II stalled early on. This was overcome by FACT, which doesn’t require ATP.
How can histone modifications be studied?
ChIP-seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation). Live cells are fixed with formaldehyde and sonicated/digested.. Antibodies to histone modifications e.g. H3K9 pull down bits of DNA interested in, cross links are reversed and DNAD is sequenced and mapped.
What does acetylation of lysine on histones do?
Correlates with gene activity. Acetylation neutralises the positive charge on lysine, opening up chromatin into a relaxed state. Acetylated by HATs (contain bromodomains to bind acetylated histones), removed by HDACs. Acetylation also provides a binding platform.
What residues can be methylated on histones?
Lysine and arginines (and probably others). Can be mono, di or trimethylated.
What do methylation codes result in?
Di or trimethylation of H3K9 and trimethylation of H3K27 are inactivating
Di or trimethylation of H2K4 is activating
Can have ‘poised’ genes in some cells (e.g. ES cells) where there is H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 for rapid switching on/off of genes as cells change lineage.
What does scSet do?
scSet 1 binds phosphorylated serine 5 of the CTD of RNA pol II and trimethylates H3K4 during transcription (activates)
scSet 2 binds phosphorylated serine 2 of CTD and trimethylates H3K36
How can histone methylation be erased?
Amine oxidation - mono and di methylated lysine. Requires a protonated N in the substrate (so can’t act on trimethylated)
Radical attack - probably for all methylated forms. Can remove me3, though not all enzymes of this class do this
Deimination - for monomethylated arginines. Causes formation of citrulline (a non-encoded amino acid). Unsure if this can be reversed.
How does LSD1 function?
A demethylase. Can be an activator or a repressor, depending on the complex formed. If in complex with Human Co-Rest, get H3K4 demethylation (repressing gene expression). If form a complex with Human AR get demethylation of H3K9 (activating gene expression)
How does heterochromatin form?
K9 is deacetylated, K4 is demethylated
K9 is methylated
HP1 binds via the chromodomain at K9me2/3. This brings in more proteins for heterochromatin formation.
How are histone modifying enzymes recruited?
Directly recognising a histone modification e.g. bromodomain recognising lysine acetylation
Specific transcription factor being required for recruitment and/or activity
Chromatin modifying enzymes interacting with RNA pol II complex
Non coding RNA recruiting histone modifying enzymes
How could lncRNAs affect transcription in cis?
Transcription in cis of lncRNAs displaces DNA bound factors that inhibit/activate transcription of a neighbouring gene
Nascent ncRNA transcripts tether chromatin modifying complexes/transcriptional regulators either activating or repressing transcription.
How could lncRNAs affect transcription in trans?
Trans-acting ncRNAs could be a platform for assembling protein complexes. Target sites are specified by DNA binding proteins
Trans ncRNAs specify binding sites by forming hybrids with complementary DNA sequences then recruit chromatin modifiers etc
lncRNAs could modulate the activity of protein complexes through conformational changes.
What is CLIP?
A method of identifying RNAs bound to proteins.
Isolate RNA-protein complexes with an antibody to RNA binding proteins. Digest ends and add alkaline phosphatase. Ligate 3’ linkers and radioactively label. Resolve on a gel and digest bound protein. Ligate a 5’ adapter and sequence (RT-PCR)
What is ChIRP?
Chromatin isolation by RNA purification. Like ChIP, but use biotinylated oligonucleotides that are complementary to ncRNAs for the pull down. Can identify ncRNA by RT-PCR, DNA sequence and RNA binding proteins (western blot/mass spec)
What factors can effect transgene expression?
Enhancers (up regulating expression/expressing in a location not intended) Silencers (down regulation) Heterochromatin (down regulation) DNA methylation (down regulation)
What is position effect variegation?
A variegation caused by the inactivation of a gene in one cells through its abnormal juxtaposition with heterochromatin
What are enhancer elements?
Regions of DNA which contain binding sites for transcription factors to up regulate transcription of a gene. Are orientation independent, can be upstream or down store, proximal or distal. Transcription factors and coactivators (such as HATs) bind. Marked by histone modifications such as H3K4me1 and H3K27ac and enhancer RNAs.
What is the difference between typical enhancers and super enhancers?
Typical enhancers regulate housekeeping genes and have moderate levels of enhancer RNAs
Super enhancers regulate cell specific/inducible genes and have high levels of enhancer RNAs and H3K4me1, H3K27ac and a bromodomain protein BRD4 that brings in a kinase to phosphorylate RNA pol II for transcription
How do super enhancers activate?
Experiment with endothelial cells and TNF-alpha. When TNF-alpha stimulus is applied, de novo super enhancers form (detected by ChIP with BRD4) and other enhancers are de-comissioned to drive rapid inflammatory responses.
What is I-BET?
An inhibitor of super enhancers. Binds bromodomain on BRD4 and is in trials for some leukaemias.
What are silencers?
Can be short or long. Long DNA elements are associated with CpG silencing and telomeres in yeast. Cause formation of heterochromatin over many kilo bases.
What are classical silencers?
Orientation and position independent. Can be overcome by enhancers in certain tissues (e.g. h-thyrotropin-beta is normally silenced but switched on by an enhancer in the thyroid).
What are locus control regions?
Sections of DNA which controls expression of genes. They often have DNase hypersensitivity sites (HSs). At the human gene CD2, the HS region 3 in the locus control region is necessary to maintain open chromatin. Form a loop of transcriptional competence, anchored with CTCF and cohesin
What are HSs?
Hypersensitivity sites to DNAse. Have a core region of 200-300bp where they bind multiple transcription factors. Some act as enhancers but not all.
How is PEV involved in LCRs?
Position effect variegation can occur if regions of an LCR that open chromatin are deleted. This results in the random spreading of heterochromatin across the gene in some promoters but not all - stochastic silencing. If the gene is in euchromatin and regions of the LCR are deleted, there will be no effect.
How can genes be tested to find whether they contain an LCR?
Integrate the gene into a mouse. If it contains an LCR, there will be no position effect variegation, and expression will be copy number dependent - the LCR will open up chromatin in the areas that the gene integrates into heterochromatin if it is present.
How can areas of matrix or scaffold attachment regions be identified?
No DNAse hypersensitive sites
Do immunoprecipitation with nuclear scaffold and isolate DNA that remains associated
Find an AT rich sequence which has structural and functional roles.
What is the major scaffold attachment protein?
Sc1 - topoisomerase II, involved in supercoiling.