Massively multiplex single-molecule oligonucleosome footprinting

  1. Nour J Abdulhay
  2. Colin P McNally
  3. Laura J Hsieh
  4. Sivakanthan Kasinathan
  5. Aidan Keith
  6. Laurel S Estes
  7. Mehran Karimzadeh
  8. Jason G Underwood
  9. Hani Goodarzi
  10. Geeta J Narlikar
  11. Vijay Ramani  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of California San Francisco, United States
  2. Stanford University, United States
  3. Vector Institute, Canada
  4. Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc, United States
  5. University of California, San Francisco, United States

Abstract

Our understanding of the beads-on-a-string arrangement of nucleosomes has been built largely on high-resolution sequence-agnostic imaging methods and sequence-resolved bulk biochemical techniques. To bridge the divide between these approaches, we present the single-molecule adenine methylated oligonucleosome sequencing assay (SAMOSA). SAMOSA is a high-throughput single-molecule sequencing method that combines adenine methyltransferase footprinting and single-molecule real-time DNA sequencing to natively and nondestructively measure nucleosome positions on individual chromatin fibres. SAMOSA data allows unbiased classification of single-molecular 'states' of nucleosome occupancy on individual chromatin fibres. We leverage this to estimate nucleosome regularity and spacing on single chromatin fibres genome-wide, at predicted transcription factor binding motifs, and across both active and silent human epigenomic domains. Our analyses suggest that chromatin is comprised of a diverse array of both regular and irregular single-molecular oligonucleosome patterns that differ subtly in their relative abundance across epigenomic domains. This irregularity is particularly striking in constitutive heterochromatin, which has typically been viewed as a conformationally static entity. Our proof-of-concept study provides a powerful new methodology for studying nucleosome organization at a previously intractable resolution, and offers up new avenues for modeling and visualizing higher-order chromatin structure.

Data availability

All raw data will be made available at GEO Accession GSE162410; processed data is available at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3834705). All scripts and notebooks for reproducing analyses in the paper are available at https://github.com/RamaniLab/SAMOSA.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Nour J Abdulhay

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Colin P McNally

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Laura J Hsieh

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Sivakanthan Kasinathan

    Pediatrics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Aidan Keith

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Laurel S Estes

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Mehran Karimzadeh

    Vector Institute, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7324-6074
  8. Jason G Underwood

    Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc, Menlo Park, United States
    Competing interests
    Jason G Underwood, J.G.U. is an employee of Pacific Biosciences, Inc. and holds stock in this company..
  9. Hani Goodarzi

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Geeta J Narlikar

    Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    Geeta J Narlikar, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1920-0147
  11. Vijay Ramani

    Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    For correspondence
    vijay.ramani@ucsf.edu
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3345-5960

Funding

Sandler Foundation

  • Vijay Ramani

American Cancer Society

  • Laura J Hsieh

National Institutes of Health (R01GM123977)

  • Hani Goodarzi

National Institutes of Health (R35GM127020)

  • Geeta J Narlikar

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2020, Abdulhay et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 6,505
    views
  • 627
    downloads
  • 78
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Nour J Abdulhay
  2. Colin P McNally
  3. Laura J Hsieh
  4. Sivakanthan Kasinathan
  5. Aidan Keith
  6. Laurel S Estes
  7. Mehran Karimzadeh
  8. Jason G Underwood
  9. Hani Goodarzi
  10. Geeta J Narlikar
  11. Vijay Ramani
(2020)
Massively multiplex single-molecule oligonucleosome footprinting
eLife 9:e59404.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.59404

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.59404

Further reading

    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Ashley L Cook, Surojit Sur ... Nicolas Wyhs
    Research Article

    Despite exciting developments in cancer immunotherapy, its broad application is limited by the paucity of targetable antigens on the tumor cell surface. As an intrinsic cellular pathway, nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) conceals neoantigens through the destruction of the RNA products from genes harboring truncating mutations. We developed and conducted a high-throughput screen, based on the ratiometric analysis of transcripts, to identify critical mediators of NMD in human cells. This screen implicated disruption of kinase SMG1’s phosphorylation of UPF1 as a potential disruptor of NMD. This led us to design a novel SMG1 inhibitor, KVS0001, that elevates the expression of transcripts and proteins resulting from human and murine truncating mutations in vitro and murine cells in vivo. Most importantly, KVS0001 concomitantly increased the presentation of immune-targetable human leukocyte antigens (HLA) class I-associated peptides from NMD-downregulated proteins on the surface of human cancer cells. KVS0001 provides new opportunities for studying NMD and the diseases in which NMD plays a role, including cancer and inherited diseases.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Kira A Cozzolino, Lynn Sanford ... Dylan J Taatjes
    Research Article

    Hyperactive interferon (IFN) signaling is a hallmark of Down syndrome (DS), a condition caused by Trisomy 21 (T21); strategies that normalize IFN signaling could benefit this population. Mediator-associated kinases CDK8 and CDK19 drive inflammatory responses through incompletely understood mechanisms. Using sibling-matched cell lines with/without T21, we investigated Mediator kinase function in the context of hyperactive IFN in DS over a 75 min to 24 hr timeframe. Activation of IFN-response genes was suppressed in cells treated with the CDK8/CDK19 inhibitor cortistatin A (CA), via rapid suppression of IFN-responsive transcription factor (TF) activity. We also discovered that CDK8/CDK19 affect splicing, a novel means by which Mediator kinases control gene expression. To further probe Mediator kinase function, we completed cytokine screens and metabolomics experiments. Cytokines are master regulators of inflammatory responses; by screening 105 different cytokine proteins, we show that Mediator kinases help drive IFN-dependent cytokine responses at least in part through transcriptional regulation of cytokine genes and receptors. Metabolomics revealed that Mediator kinase inhibition altered core metabolic pathways in cell type-specific ways, and broad upregulation of anti-inflammatory lipid mediators occurred specifically in kinase-inhibited cells during hyperactive IFNγ signaling. A subset of these lipids (e.g. oleamide, desmosterol) serve as ligands for nuclear receptors PPAR and LXR, and activation of these receptors occurred specifically during hyperactive IFN signaling in CA-treated cells, revealing mechanistic links between Mediator kinases, lipid metabolism, and nuclear receptor function. Collectively, our results establish CDK8/CDK19 as context-specific metabolic regulators, and reveal that these kinases control gene expression not only via TFs, but also through metabolic changes and splicing. Moreover, we establish that Mediator kinase inhibition antagonizes IFN signaling through transcriptional, metabolic, and cytokine responses, with implications for DS and other chronic inflammatory conditions.