Hum Mol Genet

2015
Biagioli M*, Ferrari F*, Mendenhall EM, Zhang Y, Erdin S, Vijayvargia R, Vallabh SM, Solomos N, Manavalan P, Ragavendran A, Ozsolak F, Lee JM, Talkowski ME, Gusella JF, Macdonald ME, Park PJ, Seong IS. Htt CAG repeat expansion confers pleiotropic gains of mutant huntingtin function in chromatin regulation. Hum Mol Genet 2015;Abstract

The CAG repeat expansion in the Huntington's disease gene HTT extends a polyglutamine tract in mutant huntingtin that enhances its ability to facilitate polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2). To gain insight into this dominant gain of function, we mapped histone modifications genome-wide across an isogenic panel of mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) and neuronal progenitor cell (NPC) lines, comparing the effects of Htt null and different size Htt CAG mutations. We found that Htt is required in ESC for the proper deposition of histone H3K27me3 at a subset of 'bivalent' loci but in NPC it is needed at 'bivalent' loci for both the proper maintenance and the appropriate removal of this mark. In contrast, Htt CAG size, though changing histone H3K27me3, is prominently associated with altered histone H3K4me3 at 'active' loci. The sets of ESC and NPC genes with altered histone marks delineated by the lack of huntingtin or the presence of mutant huntingtin, though distinct, are enriched in similar pathways with apoptosis specifically highlighted for the CAG mutation. Thus, the manner by which huntingtin function facilitates PRC2 may afford mutant huntingtin with multiple opportunities to impinge upon the broader machinery that orchestrates developmentally appropriate chromatin status.

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2012
Hodge JC, Kim T-M, Dreyfuss JM, Somasundaram P, Christacos NC, Rousselle M, Quade BJ, Park PJ, Stewart EA, Morton CC. Expression profiling of uterine leiomyomata cytogenetic subgroups reveals distinct signatures in matched myometrium: transcriptional profiling of the t(12;14) and evidence in support of predisposing genetic heterogeneity. Hum Mol Genet 2012;21(10):2312-29.Abstract

Uterine leiomyomata (UL), the most common neoplasm in reproductive-age women, are classified into distinct genetic subgroups based on recurrent chromosome abnormalities. To develop a molecular signature of UL with t(12;14)(q14-q15;q23-q24), we took advantage of the multiple UL arising as independent clonal lesions within a single uterus. We compared genome-wide expression levels of t(12;14) UL to non-t(12;14) UL from each of nine women in a paired analysis, with each sample weighted for the percentage of t(12;14) cells to adjust for mosaicism with normal cells. This resulted in a transcriptional profile that confirmed HMGA2, known to be overexpressed in t(12;14) UL, as the most significantly altered gene. Pathway analysis of the differentially expressed genes showed significant association with cell proliferation, particularly G1/S checkpoint regulation. This is consistent with the known larger size of t(12;14) UL relative to karyotypically normal UL or to UL in the deletion 7q22 subgroup. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering demonstrated that patient variability is relatively dominant to the distinction of t(12;14) UL compared with non-t(12;14) UL or of t(12;14) UL compared with del(7q) UL. The paired design we employed is therefore important to produce an accurate t(12;14) UL-specific gene list by removing the confounding effects of genotype and environment. Interestingly, myometrium not only clustered away from the tumors, but generally separated based on associated t(12;14) versus del(7q) status. Nine genes were identified whose expression can distinguish the myometrium origin. This suggests an underlying constitutional genetic predisposition to these somatic changes which could potentially lead to improved personalized management and treatment.

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2011
Anchan RM, Quaas P, Gerami-Naini B, Bartake H, Griffin A, Zhou Y, Day DS, Eaton JL, George LL, Naber C, Turbe-Doan A, Park PJ, Hornstein MD, Maas RL. Amniocytes can serve a dual function as a source of iPS cells and feeder layers. Hum Mol Genet 2011;20(5):962-74.Abstract

Clinical barriers to stem-cell therapy include the need for efficient derivation of histocompatible stem cells and the zoonotic risk inherent to human stem-cell xenoculture on mouse feeder cells. We describe a system for efficiently deriving induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human and mouse amniocytes, and for maintaining the pluripotency of these iPS cells on mitotically inactivated feeder layers prepared from the same amniocytes. Both cellular components of this system are thus autologous to a single donor. Moreover, the use of human feeder cells reduces the risk of zoonosis. Generation of iPS cells using retroviral vectors from short- or long-term cultured human and mouse amniocytes using four factors, or two factors in mouse, occurs in 5-7 days with 0.5% efficiency. This efficiency is greater than that reported for mouse and human fibroblasts using similar viral infection approaches, and does not appear to result from selective reprogramming of Oct4(+) or c-Kit(+) amniocyte subpopulations. Derivation of amniocyte-derived iPS (AdiPS) cell colonies, which express pluripotency markers and exhibit appropriate microarray expression and DNA methylation properties, was facilitated by live immunostaining. AdiPS cells also generate embryoid bodies in vitro and teratomas in vivo. Furthermore, mouse and human amniocytes can serve as feeder layers for iPS cells and for mouse and human embryonic stem (ES) cells. Thus, human amniocytes provide an efficient source of autologous iPS cells and, as feeder cells, can also maintain iPS and ES cell pluripotency without the safety concerns associated with xenoculture.

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Ho JWK, Bishop EP, Karchenko PV, Nègre N, White KP, Park PJ. ChIP-chip versus ChIP-seq: lessons for experimental design and data analysis. BMC Genomics 2011;12:134.Abstract

BACKGROUND: Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by microarray hybridization (ChIP-chip) or high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq) allows genome-wide discovery of protein-DNA interactions such as transcription factor bindings and histone modifications. Previous reports only compared a small number of profiles, and little has been done to compare histone modification profiles generated by the two technologies or to assess the impact of input DNA libraries in ChIP-seq analysis. Here, we performed a systematic analysis of a modENCODE dataset consisting of 31 pairs of ChIP-chip/ChIP-seq profiles of the coactivator CBP, RNA polymerase II (RNA PolII), and six histone modifications across four developmental stages of Drosophila melanogaster. RESULTS: Both technologies produce highly reproducible profiles within each platform, ChIP-seq generally produces profiles with a better signal-to-noise ratio, and allows detection of more peaks and narrower peaks. The set of peaks identified by the two technologies can be significantly different, but the extent to which they differ varies depending on the factor and the analysis algorithm. Importantly, we found that there is a significant variation among multiple sequencing profiles of input DNA libraries and that this variation most likely arises from both differences in experimental condition and sequencing depth. We further show that using an inappropriate input DNA profile can impact the average signal profiles around genomic features and peak calling results, highlighting the importance of having high quality input DNA data for normalization in ChIP-seq analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the biases present in each of the platforms, show the variability that can arise from both technology and analysis methods, and emphasize the importance of obtaining high quality and deeply sequenced input DNA libraries for ChIP-seq analysis.

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