![]() | ![]() |
Formats:
|
||||||||||||||
Nucleosome organization in the Drosophila genome 1 Center for Gene Regulation, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA 2 Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA 3 Department of Biomedical Informatics and Department of Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA 4 Berkeley Drosophila Transcription Network Project, Genomics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA 5 Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health and Department of Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York, Albany, New York 12201-2002 Correspondence and request for material should be addressed to B.F.P. (Email: bfp2/at/psu.edu) *These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract Comparative genomics of nucleosome positions provides a powerful means for understanding how the organization of chromatin and the transcription machinery co-evolve. Here we produce a high resolution reference map of H2A.Z and bulk nucleosome locations across the genome of the fly D. melanogaster, and compare it to that from the yeast S. cerevisiae. Like Saccharomyces, Drosophila nucleosomes are organized around active transcription start sites in a canonical −1, NFR (nucleosome-free region), +1 arrangement. However, Drosophila does not incorporate H2A.Z into the −1 nucleosome and does not bury its transcriptional start site in the +1 nucleosome. At thousands of genes, RNA polymerase II engages the +1 nucleosome and pauses. How the transcription initiation machinery contends with the +1 nucleosome appears to be fundamentally different between lower and higher eukaryotes. Knowledge of the precise location of nucleosomes in a genome is essential in order to understand the context in which chromosomal processes such as transcription and DNA replication operate. A common theme to emerge from recent genome-wide maps of nucleosome locations is a general deficiency of nucleosomes in promoter regions and an enrichment of certain histone modifications towards the 5′ end of genes1–7. A high resolution genomic map of nucleosome locations in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae has further revealed the nucleosomal context of cis-regulatory elements and transcriptional start sites1–7. However such context has not been established in multicellular eukaryotes, and so fundamental questions remain: 1) Is there a common theme by which genes of multicellular eukaryotes position their nucleosomes with respect to functional chromosomal elements? 2) Are such themes and their underlying rules evolutionarily conserved across eukaryotes? 3) What are the functional implications for those themes that differ across the major eukaryotic lines? To address these questions we have produced a genome-wide high resolution map of H2A.Z/H2Av and bulk nucleosome locations in the embryo of the fruit fly D. melanogaster. H2A.Z is widely distributed in Drosophila8, but some evidence points to specialized roles9,10. In Saccharomyces, H2A.Z replaces H2A at the 5′ end of active genes11–14, and thus provides a focused representation of promoter chromatin architecture. Drosophila embryos are composed of a wide variety of cell types in which subsets of genes may elicit distinct gene expression programs15,16. Global gene expression profiles during all stages of Drosophila development from 8–12 hrs post fertilization to a young adult fly are correlated (Fig. S1), which possibly reflects the broad expression pattern of the large repertoire of house-keeping genes in most cell types during development15,16. This general spatial and temporal independence of gene expression provides impetus to use whole embryos to develop a reference nucleosome map. Indeed, our map reveals that nucleosomes are generally well organized, despite cell type heterogeneity. Open and closed chromatin structures are linked to transcription, H2A.Z, and core promoter elements Embryos were treated with formaldehyde, and H2A.Z nucleosome core particles were immunopurified (Figs. S2–S3). 652,738 H2A.Z-containing nucleosomes were sequenced (Fig. S4), and mapped to 207,025 consensus locations in the Drosophila r5.2 reference genome (Figs. 1a
Fig. 1b H2A.Z nucleosomes were predominantly distributed at 175 bp intervals from the TSS (compared to 165 bp in Saccharomyces1, Fig. 1b Surprisingly, the genic array of Drosophila nucleosomes, started ~75 bp further downstream from the equivalent position in Saccharomyces, placing the +1 nucleosome at +135 (Figs. 1b Drosophila have well-defined core promoter elements such as TATA, Initiator, DPE, and MTE which bind to the general transcription machinery18–22, although these elements are not found in most genes. For genes lacking these core promoter elements or having a DPE, the canonical nucleosome organization was observed (black pattern in Fig. S11), which was more robust when only H2A.Z containing nucleosomes were examined (blue pattern). In contrast, genes containing TATA, Inr, or MTE had a diminished canonical nucleosome organization and a diminished NFR, indicating that these classes of genes may have a more compact and gene-specific chromatin architecture, including a positioned nucleosome over the TSS. Consequently, they might be more dependent upon chromatin remodelling for expression. When genes become transcriptionally competent, resident nucleosomes could adopt a more open and canonical organization, which includes replacing H2A with H2A.Z. Three observations support this hypothesis. First, H2A.Z and bulk nucleosomes at highly expressed genes were more uniformly organized than those at lowly expressed genes (Fig. S9). Second, bulk nucleosomes for genes that contained H2A.Z at their 5′ end displayed the canonical pattern, while those lacking H2A.Z did not (Fig. S10, black plot vs red trace). Third, within any class of genes except those having an Initiator, H2A.Z nucleosomes adopted a more canonical organization than the bulk set of nucleosomes (Fig. S11). These results suggest that transcription and the presence of H2A.Z are linked to an open and uniform chromatin architecture at promoter regions. Conserved DNA motifs and H2A.Z nucleosomes are organized around each other Recent genome sequencing of 12 Drosophila species of differing evolutionary distance has provided an unprecedented opportunity to identify conserved DNA sequence motifs23. In comparing the distribution of motifs around the TSS23, we found four recurring patterns: 27 motifs were classified as “nucleosomal”, 57 as “anti-nucleosomal”, 12 as “fixed”, and 98 as “random” (left panels in Fig. 2a
We examined the organizational relationship of these DNA motifs to individual H2A.Z nucleosomes genome-wide (right panels of Fig. 2a Drosophila use a CC/GG patterning rather than AA/TT for demarcating nucleosome positions We examined whether the positions of Drosophila H2A.Z nucleosomes are at least partly defined by the underlying DNA sequence pattern, and whether such pattern might be evolutionarily conserved. We determined the frequency of dinucleotides across Drosophila H2A.Z nucleosomal DNA since 10 bp periodic patterns of certain dinucleotides enhance the wrapping and positioning of DNA around the histone core (Figs. 3a
We further investigated the rules of nucleosome positioning by scanning promoter regions for correlations to nucleosome positioning sequences previously identified for a relatively small number of yeast or human nucleosomes24, in which AA/TT (yeast25 and worms26) or CC/GG (human)27 dinucleotides occur in a biased and/or periodic arrangement across nucleosomal DNA. Unlike in yeast, the AA/TT positioning pattern failed to identify nucleosome locations (Fig. 3b Nucleosome-free regions reside at the end of active genes Despite H2A.Z being enriched at the 5′ end of genes, substantial levels were detected throughout the genome, which allowed us to examine nucleosome organization at the 3′ end of genes (Figs. 4a
RNA polymerase II contacts the +1 nucleosome and pauses The location of the +1 nucleosome at the 5′ end of genes is striking because its upstream border resides at approximately +62 (relative to the TSS), which is near where Pol II pauses during the transcription cycle3,28–32. To examine the potential linkage between Pol II pausing and nucleosome positions, we first determined the genome-wide location of Pol II in embryos at 1,956 putatively paused genes (Fig. 5a
The location of the +1 H2A.Z nucleosome was similar (but not identical) whether or not paused Pol II was present (Fig. 5b Intriguingly, genes that contained a paused Pol II showed a ~10 bp downstream shift of H2A.Z nucleosomes (P-value = 10−9; Fig. 5b To test the prediction that Pol II is engaging the +1 nucleosome, bulk mononucleosomes were prepared from formaldehyde crosslinked embryos and immunoprecipitated with antibodies directed against Pol II. DNA corresponding to mononucleosomes (~150 bp) was gel-purified and mapped to the entire Drosophila genome with high resolution tiling arrays. Fig. 5c Conclusions The high resolution map of Drosophila nucleosomes reveals evolutionarily conserved and divergent principles of nucleosome organization. Genes that possess H2A.Z nucleosomes are likely to have experienced a transcription event. They tend to have nucleosome-free promoter and termination regions and intervening arrays of uniformly positioned nucleosomes that become less uniform towards the 3′ end of the gene. H2A.Z nucleosomes in general might not block assembly of the transcription machinery at transcriptionally “experienced” promoters. However, repressed promoters or those containing Initiator elements do appear to have an H2A nucleosome over the TSS. Conserved DNA sequence motifs (and thus any proteins that bind to them) tend to have an organizational relationship with nucleosomes. “Anti-nucleosomal” motifs including those for proteins such as engrailed, even skipped, fushi tarzu, giant, hunchback, and knirps tend to be located upstream of the TSS and might contribute to the exclusion of nucleosomes over the core promoter. Indeed some have anti-nucleosomal activity42,43. “Nucleosomal” motifs include sites for achaete, antennapedia, dorsal, tramtrack, and others. Their preference for locations downstream of the TSS where nucleosomes are well organized raises the possibility that they contribute to nucleosome organization. In Saccharomyces, the location of the TSS just inside the +1 nucleosome border, allows the nucleosome to potentially exert control over initiation, whereas in Drosophila, the general case may be to position the +1 nucleosome to interact with a transcriptionally engaged paused polymerase. Whether the +1 nucleosome is causative or just participatory in the pausing is not known. It is now becoming clear that metazoans regulate transcription in large part through Pol II pausing rather than solely through transcription complex assembly3,31,32,44. The nucleosome map and its context to DNA regulatory elements, presented here, provides a framework for designing experiments and analyzing existing data to understand how metazoans regulate transcription. METHODS SUMMARY D. melanogaster embryos (0–12 hr) were collected and crosslinked with formaldehyde. H2A.Z was immunoprecipitated from chromatin digested with MNase. Mononucleosomal DNA was gel-purified and sequenced using Roche GS20/FLX pyrosequencing technology1,45. Chromatin from crosslinked embryos was also solubilized by sonication and/or MNase digestion, where indicated, and Pol II immunoprecipitated. Bulk nucleosomes were not immunoprecipitated. MNase-treated samples were gel-purified in the 75–200 bp range. DNA samples were then hybridized to Affymetrix Drosophila tiling microarrays (36 bp average probe spacing). MethodsFigsTab Full Methods and any associated references are available in the online version of the paper at www.nature.com/nature. Supplementary Information is linked to the online version of the paper at www.nature.com/nature. Click here to view.(3.5M, pdf) Acknowledgments This work was supported by grants HG004160 (BFP), and GM47477 (DSG). We thank M. Biggin for early access to the Pol II ChIP-chip data, Ruopeng Fan for supplying the rpb3 antibody, and Chanhyo Lee for help in identifying paused Pol II. Footnotes Author Information Sequence data deposition is through NCBI Trace Archives TI SRA000283, Sequencing Center = “CCGB”, and microarray deposition through ArrayExpress, Accession numbers E-MEXP-1515 and -1519. Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints. The authors declare no competing financial interest. Author Contributions T.M. prepared and purified the nucleosomes including Pol II-bound nucleosomes; C.J. analyzed the nucleosome mapping data and its relationship to other genomic features; I.P.I. performed computational analyses related to nucleosome positioning sequences; X.L. conducted ChIP-chip on Pol II; B.J.V. conducted ChIP-chip on nucleosome-Pol II interactions; S.J.Z. provided bioinformatics support; L.T. constructed libraries and sequenced nucleosomal DNA; J.Q. mapped sequencing reads to the yeast genome; RG provided H2A.Z antibodies; SCS directed the DNA sequencing phase; DSG directed embryo preparations and helped interpret the data; I.A. developed computational approaches to derive nucleosome maps from the read locations and developed the associated browser; B.F.P. directed the project, interpreted the data, and wrote the paper. References 1. Albert I, et al. Translational and rotational settings of H2A.Z nucleosomes across the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Nature. 2007;446:572–576. [PubMed] 2. Barski A, et al. High-resolution profiling of histone methylations in the human genome. Cell. 2007;129:823–837. [PubMed] 3. Guenther MG, Levine SS, Boyer LA, Jaenisch R, Young RA. A chromatin landmark and transcription initiation at most promoters in human cells. Cell. 2007;130:77–88. [PubMed] 4. Lee W, et al. A high-resolution atlas of nucleosome occupancy in yeast. Nat Genet. 2007;39:1235–1244. [PubMed] 5. Mito Y, Henikoff JG, Henikoff S. Genome-scale profiling of histone H3.3 replacement patterns. Nat Genet. 2005;37:1090–1097. [PubMed] 6. Pokholok DK, et al. Genome-wide map of nucleosome acetylation and methylation in yeast. Cell. 2005;122:517–527. [PubMed] 7. Yuan GC, et al. Genome-scale identification of nucleosome positions in S. cerevisiae Science. 2005;309:626–630. 8. Leach TJ, et al. Histone H2A.Z is widely but nonrandomly distributed in chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster. J Biol Chem. 2000;275:23267–23272. [PubMed] 9. Updike DL, Mango SE. Temporal regulation of foregut development by HTZ-1/H2A.Z and PHA-4/FoxA. PLoS Genet. 2006;2:e161. [PubMed] 10. Swaminathan J, Baxter EM, Corces VG. The role of histone H2Av variant replacement and histone H4 acetylation in the establishment of Drosophila heterochromatin. Genes Dev. 2005;19:65–76. [PubMed] 11. Lieb JD, Clarke ND. Control of Transcription through Intragenic Patterns of Nucleosome Composition. Cell. 2005;123:1187–1190. [PubMed] 12. Raisner RM, et al. Histone variant H2A.Z marks the 5′ ends of both active and inactive genes in euchromatin. Cell. 2005;123:233–248. [PubMed] 13. Zhang H, Roberts DN, Cairns BR. Genome-wide dynamics of Htz1, a histone H2A variant that poises repressed/basal promoters for activation through histone loss. Cell. 2005;123:219–231. [PubMed] 14. Li B, et al. Preferential occupancy of histone variant H2AZ at inactive promoters influences local histone modifications and chromatin remodeling. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2005;102:18385–18390. [PubMed] 15. Hild M, et al. An integrated gene annotation and transcriptional profiling approach towards the full gene content of the Drosophila genome. Genome Biol. 2003;5:R3. [PubMed] 16. Tomancak P, et al. Global analysis of patterns of gene expression during Drosophila embryogenesis. Genome Biol. 2007;8:R145. [PubMed] 17. Bruce K, et al. The replacement histone H2A.Z in a hyperacetylated form is a feature of active genes in the chicken. Nucl Acids Res. 2005;33:5633–5639. [PubMed] 18. Purnell BA, Emanuel PA, Gilmour DS. TFIID sequence recognition of the initiator and sequences farther downstream in Drosophila class II genes. Genes Dev. 1994;8:830–842. [PubMed] 19. Kutach AK, Kadonaga JT. The downstream promoter element DPE appears to be as widely used as the TATA box in Drosophila core promoters. Mol Cell Biol. 2000;20:4754–4764. [PubMed] 20. Lim CY, et al. The MTE, a new core promoter element for transcription by RNA polymerase II. Genes Dev. 2004;18:1606–1617. [PubMed] 21. Biggin MD, Tjian R. Transcription factors that activate the Ultrabithorax promoter in developmentally staged extracts. Cell. 1988;53:699–711. [PubMed] 22. Soeller WC, Oh CE, Kornberg TB. Isolation of cDNAs encoding the Drosophila GAGA transcription factor. Mol Cell Biol. 1993;13:7961–7970. [PubMed] 23. Stark A, et al. Discovery of functional elements in 12 Drosophila genomes using evolutionary signatures. Nature. 2007;450:219–232. [PubMed] 24. Ioshikhes I, Bolshoy A, Derenshteyn K, Borodovsky M, Trifonov EN. Nucleosome DNA sequence pattern revealed by multiple alignment of experimentally mapped sequences. J Mol Biol. 1996;262:129–139. [PubMed] 25. Ioshikhes IP, Albert I, Zanton SJ, Pugh BF. Nucleosome positions predicted through comparative genomics. Nat Genet. 2006;38:1210–1215. [PubMed] 26. Johnson SM, Tan FJ, McCullough HL, Riordan DP, Fire AZ. Flexibility and constraint in the nucleosome core landscape of Caenorhabditis elegans chromatin. Genome Res. 2006;16:1505–1516. [PubMed] 27. Kogan SB, Kato M, Kiyama R, Trifonov EN. Sequence structure of human nucleosome DNA. J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2006;24:43–48. [PubMed] 28. Gilmour DS, Lis JT. RNA polymerase II interacts with the promoter region of the noninduced hsp70 gene in Drosophila melanogaster cells. Mol Cell Biol. 1986;6:3984–3989. [PubMed] 29. Law A, Hirayoshi K, O’Brien T, Lis JT. Direct cloning of DNA that interacts in vivo with a specific protein: application to RNA polymerase II and sites of pausing in Drosophila. Nucl Acids Res. 1998;26:919–924. [PubMed] 30. Lee C, et al. NELF and GAGA factor are linked to promoter proximal pausing at many genes in Drosophila. Mol Cell Biol. 2008;28:xxx–xxx. 31. Muse GW, et al. RNA polymerase is poised for activation across the genome. Nat Genet. 2007;39:1507–1511. [PubMed] 32. Zeitlinger J, et al. RNA polymerase stalling at developmental control genes in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo. Nat Genet. 2007;39:1512–1516. [PubMed] 33. Gnatt AL, Cramer P, Fu J, Bushnell DA, Kornberg RD. Structural basis of transcription: an RNA polymerase II elongation complex at 3.3 A resolution. Science. 2001;292:1876–1882. [PubMed] 34. Brown SA, Imbalzano AN, Kingston RE. Activator-dependent regulation of transcriptional pausing on nucleosomal templates. Genes Dev. 1996;10:1479–1490. [PubMed] 35. Brown SA, Kingston RE. Disruption of downstream chromatin directed by a transcriptional activator. Genes Dev. 1997;11:3116–3121. [PubMed] 36. Carey M, Li B, Workman JL. RSC exploits histone acetylation to abrogate the nucleosomal block to RNA polymerase II elongation. Mol Cell. 2006;24:481–487. [PubMed] 37. Bondarenko VA, et al. Nucleosomes can form a polar barrier to transcript elongation by RNA polymerase II. Mol Cell. 2006;24:469–479. [PubMed] 38. Renner DB, Yamaguchi Y, Wada T, Handa H, Price DH. A highly purified RNA polymerase II elongation control system. J Biol Chem. 2001;276:42601–42609. [PubMed] 39. Wu CH, et al. NELF and DSIF cause promoter proximal pausing on the hsp70 promoter in Drosophila. Genes Dev. 2003;17:1402–1414. [PubMed] 40. Kornberg R. The location of nucleosomes in chromatin: specific or statistical. Nature. 1981;292:579–580. [PubMed] 41. Kornberg RD, Stryer L. Statistical distributions of nucleosomes: nonrandom locations by a stochastic mechanism. Nucl Acids Res. 1988;16:6677–6690. [PubMed] 42. Lehmann M. Anything else but GAGA: a nonhistone protein complex reshapes chromatin structure. Trends Genet. 2004;20:15–22. [PubMed] 43. Mito Y, Henikoff JG, Henikoff S. Histone replacement marks the boundaries of cis-regulatory domains. Science. 2007;315:1408–1411. [PubMed] 44. Lis JT. Imaging Drosophila gene activation and polymerase pausing in vivo. Nature. 2007;450:198–202. [PubMed] 45. Margulies M, et al. Genome sequencing in microfabricated high-density picolitre reactors. Nature. 2005;437:376–380. [PubMed] 46. Eisen MB, Spellman PT, Brown PO, Botstein D. Cluster analysis and display of genome-wide expression patterns. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998;95:14863–14868. [PubMed] |
PubMed related articles
Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. |
|||||||||||||
Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]J Biol Chem. 2000 Jul 28; 275(30):23267-72.
[J Biol Chem. 2000]PLoS Genet. 2006 Sep 29; 2(9):e161.
[PLoS Genet. 2006]Genes Dev. 2005 Jan 1; 19(1):65-76.
[Genes Dev. 2005]Cell. 2005 Dec 29; 123(7):1187-90.
[Cell. 2005]Genome Biol. 2003; 5(1):R3.
[Genome Biol. 2003]Genome Biol. 2007; 8(7):R145.
[Genome Biol. 2007]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]Cell. 2005 Oct 21; 123(2):233-48.
[Cell. 2005]Cell. 2005 Oct 21; 123(2):219-31.
[Cell. 2005]Nucleic Acids Res. 2005; 33(17):5633-9.
[Nucleic Acids Res. 2005]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]Genes Dev. 1994 Apr 1; 8(7):830-42.
[Genes Dev. 1994]Mol Cell Biol. 1993 Dec; 13(12):7961-70.
[Mol Cell Biol. 1993]Nature. 2007 Nov 8; 450(7167):219-32.
[Nature. 2007]J Mol Biol. 1996 Sep 20; 262(2):129-39.
[J Mol Biol. 1996]Nat Genet. 2006 Oct; 38(10):1210-5.
[Nat Genet. 2006]Genome Res. 2006 Dec; 16(12):1505-16.
[Genome Res. 2006]J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2006 Aug; 24(1):43-8.
[J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2006]Cell. 2007 Jul 13; 130(1):77-88.
[Cell. 2007]Mol Cell Biol. 1986 Nov; 6(11):3984-9.
[Mol Cell Biol. 1986]Nat Genet. 2007 Dec; 39(12):1512-6.
[Nat Genet. 2007]Science. 2001 Jun 8; 292(5523):1876-82.
[Science. 2001]Genes Dev. 1996 Jun 15; 10(12):1479-90.
[Genes Dev. 1996]Mol Cell. 2006 Nov 3; 24(3):469-79.
[Mol Cell. 2006]J Biol Chem. 2001 Nov 9; 276(45):42601-9.
[J Biol Chem. 2001]Genes Dev. 2003 Jun 1; 17(11):1402-14.
[Genes Dev. 2003]Nature. 1981 Aug 13; 292(5824):579-80.
[Nature. 1981]Nucleic Acids Res. 1988 Jul 25; 16(14A):6677-90.
[Nucleic Acids Res. 1988]Trends Genet. 2004 Jan; 20(1):15-22.
[Trends Genet. 2004]Science. 2007 Mar 9; 315(5817):1408-11.
[Science. 2007]Cell. 2007 Jul 13; 130(1):77-88.
[Cell. 2007]Nat Genet. 2007 Dec; 39(12):1507-11.
[Nat Genet. 2007]Nat Genet. 2007 Dec; 39(12):1512-6.
[Nat Genet. 2007]Nature. 2007 Nov 8; 450(7167):198-202.
[Nature. 2007]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]Nature. 2005 Sep 15; 437(7057):376-80.
[Nature. 2005]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Dec 8; 95(25):14863-8.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998]Nature. 2007 Mar 29; 446(7135):572-6.
[Nature. 2007]