Current epigenomics approaches have facilitated the genome-wide identification of regulatory elements based on chromatin features and transcriptional regulator binding and have begun to map ...long-range interactions between regulatory elements and their targets. Here, we focus on the emerging roles of CTCF and the cohesin in coordinating long-range interactions between regulatory elements. We discuss how species-specific transposable elements may influence such interactions by remodeling the CTCF binding repertoire and suggest that cohesin’s association with enhancers, promoters, and sites defined by CTCF binding has the potential to form developmentally regulated networks of long-range interactions that reflect and promote cell-type-specific transcriptional programs.
Transposable elements (TEs) contribute to the large amount of repetitive sequences in mammalian genomes and have been linked to species-specific genome innovations by rewiring regulatory circuitries. ...However, organisms need to restrict TE activity to ensure genome integrity, especially in germline cells to protect the transmission of genetic information to the next generation. This review features our current understandings of mammalian PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) and their role in TE regulation in spermatogenesis. Here we discuss functional implication and explore additional molecular mechanisms that inhibit transposon activity and altogether illustrate the paradoxical arms race between genome evolution and stability.
Topological domains are key architectural building blocks of chromosomes, but their functional importance and evolutionary dynamics are not well defined. We performed comparative high-throughput ...chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) in four mammals and characterized the conservation and divergence of chromosomal contact insulation and the resulting domain architectures within distantly related genomes. We show that the modular organization of chromosomes is robustly conserved in syntenic regions and that this is compatible with conservation of the binding landscape of the insulator protein CTCF. Specifically, conserved CTCF sites are co-localized with cohesin, are enriched at strong topological domain borders, and bind to DNA motifs with orientations that define the directionality of CTCF’s long-range interactions. Conversely, divergent CTCF binding between species is correlated with divergence of internal domain structure, likely driven by local CTCF binding sequence changes, demonstrating how genome evolution can be linked to a continuous flux of local conformation changes. We also show that large-scale domains are reorganized during genome evolution as intact modules.
Display omitted
•Multi-species Hi-C comparisons reveal robust conservation of chromosome organization•CTCF binding has evolved under two regimes with different effects on structure•Oriented CTCF motifs determine the directionality of CTCF-mediated interactions
To explore the mechanisms underlying the evolution of chromosomal domain structures, Vietri Rudan et al. compare four mammalian species and reveal a direct link between insulator site divergence and the evolution of chromatin domain structure. Their data point to a direct role for CTCF/cohesin in driving structural change in the genome.
Differences in transcription factor binding can contribute to organismal evolution by altering downstream gene expression programmes. Genome-wide studies in Drosophila melanogaster and mammals have ...revealed common quantitative and combinatorial properties of in vivo DNA binding, as well as marked differences in the rate and mechanisms of evolution of transcription factor binding in metazoans. Here, we review the recently discovered rapid 're-wiring' of in vivo transcription factor binding between related metazoan species and summarize general principles underlying the observed patterns of evolution. We then consider what might explain the differences in genome evolution between metazoan phyla and outline the conceptual and technological challenges facing this research field.
Male gametes are generated through a specialised differentiation pathway involving a series of developmental transitions that are poorly characterised at the molecular level. Here, we use ...droplet-based single-cell RNA-Sequencing to profile spermatogenesis in adult animals and at multiple stages during juvenile development. By exploiting the first wave of spermatogenesis, we both precisely stage germ cell development and enrich for rare somatic cell-types and spermatogonia. To capture the full complexity of spermatogenesis including cells that have low transcriptional activity, we apply a statistical tool that identifies previously uncharacterised populations of leptotene and zygotene spermatocytes. Focusing on post-meiotic events, we characterise the temporal dynamics of X chromosome re-activation and profile the associated chromatin state using CUT&RUN. This identifies a set of genes strongly repressed by H3K9me3 in spermatocytes, which then undergo extensive chromatin remodelling post-meiosis, thus acquiring an active chromatin state and spermatid-specific expression.
The mammalian radiation has corresponded with rapid changes in noncoding regions of the genome, but we lack a comprehensive understanding of regulatory evolution in mammals. Here, we track the ...evolution of promoters and enhancers active in liver across 20 mammalian species from six diverse orders by profiling genomic enrichment of H3K27 acetylation and H3K4 trimethylation. We report that rapid evolution of enhancers is a universal feature of mammalian genomes. Most of the recently evolved enhancers arise from ancestral DNA exaptation, rather than lineage-specific expansions of repeat elements. In contrast, almost all liver promoters are partially or fully conserved across these species. Our data further reveal that recently evolved enhancers can be associated with genes under positive selection, demonstrating the power of this approach for annotating regulatory adaptations in genomic sequences. These results provide important insight into the functional genetics underpinning mammalian regulatory evolution.
Display omitted
•Rapid enhancer and slow promoter evolution across genomes of 20 mammalian species•Enhancers are rarely conserved across these mammals•Recently evolved enhancers dominate mammalian regulatory landscapes•Unbiased mapping links candidate enhancers with lineage-specific positive selection
Comparative functional genomic analysis in 20 mammalian species reveals distinct features for the evolution of enhancers, in comparison to those of promoters, across 180 million years.
A large proportion of functional sequence within mammalian genomes falls outside protein-coding exons and can be transcribed into long RNAs. However, the roles in mammalian biology of long noncoding ...RNA (lncRNA) are not well understood. Few lncRNAs have experimentally determined roles, with some of these being lineage-specific. Determining the extent by which transcription of lncRNA loci is retained or lost across multiple evolutionary lineages is essential if we are to understand their contribution to mammalian biology and to lineage-specific traits. Here, we experimentally investigated the conservation of lncRNA expression among closely related rodent species, allowing the evolution of DNA sequence to be uncoupled from evolution of transcript expression. We generated total RNA (RNAseq) and H3K4me3-bound (ChIPseq) DNA data, and combined both to construct catalogues of transcripts expressed in the adult liver of Mus musculus domesticus (C57BL/6J), Mus musculus castaneus, and Rattus norvegicus. We estimated the rate of transcriptional turnover of lncRNAs and investigated the effects of their lineage-specific birth or death. LncRNA transcription showed considerably greater gain and loss during rodent evolution, compared with protein-coding genes. Nucleotide substitution rates were found to mirror the in vivo transcriptional conservation of intergenic lncRNAs between rodents: only the sequences of noncoding loci with conserved transcription were constrained. Finally, we found that lineage-specific intergenic lncRNAs appear to be associated with modestly elevated expression of genomically neighbouring protein-coding genes. Our findings show that nearly half of intergenic lncRNA loci have been gained or lost since the last common ancestor of mouse and rat, and they predict that such rapid transcriptional turnover contributes to the evolution of tissue- and lineage-specific gene expression.
Autosomal-recessive loss of the NSUN2 gene has been identified as a causative link to intellectual disability disorders in humans. NSun2 is an RNA methyltransferase modifying cytosine-5 in transfer ...RNAs (tRNAs), yet the identification of cytosine methylation in other RNA species has been hampered by the lack of sensitive and reliable molecular techniques. Here, we describe miCLIP as an additional approach for identifying RNA methylation sites in transcriptomes. miCLIP is a customized version of the individual-nucleotide-resolution crosslinking and immunoprecipitation (iCLIP) method. We confirm site-specific methylation in tRNAs and additional messenger and noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). Among these, vault ncRNAs contained six NSun2-methylated cytosines, three of which were confirmed by RNA bisulfite sequencing. Using patient cells lacking the NSun2 protein, we further show that loss of cytosine-5 methylation in vault RNAs causes aberrant processing into Argonaute-associated small RNA fragments that can function as microRNAs. Thus, impaired processing of vault ncRNA may contribute to the etiology of NSun2-deficiency human disorders.
Display omitted
•miCLIP detects NSun2-mediated cytosine-5 methylation in RNA•Vault noncoding RNA is methylated by NSun2•Cytosine-5 in Vault RNA determines its processing into small RNA (svRNA)•svRNAs bind to Argonaute proteins and exhibit microRNA-like functions
Comprehensive analyses of cytosine-5 methylation in the RNA transcriptome have previously been hampered by the lack of sensitive and reliable molecular techniques. In this work, Ule, Frye, and colleagues describe the methylation-iCLIP (miCLIP) method that they used to identify target sites of the RNA methyltransferase, NSun2. Among the targeted noncoding RNAs were vault RNAs, previously associated with resistance to chemotherapy in cancer. They further show how NSun2-mediated methylation of vault ncRNAs influences their processing into small microRNA-like molecules.
CTCF-binding locations represent regulatory sequences that are highly constrained over the course of evolution. To gain insight into how these DNA elements are conserved and spread through the ...genome, we defined the full spectrum of CTCF-binding sites, including a 33/34-mer motif, and identified over five thousand highly conserved, robust, and tissue-independent CTCF-binding locations by comparing ChIP-seq data from six mammals. Our data indicate that activation of retroelements has produced species-specific expansions of CTCF binding in rodents, dogs, and opossum, which often functionally serve as chromatin and transcriptional insulators. We discovered fossilized repeat elements flanking deeply conserved CTCF-binding regions, indicating that similar retrotransposon expansions occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. Repeat-driven dispersal of CTCF binding is a fundamental, ancient, and still highly active mechanism of genome evolution in mammalian lineages.
Display omitted
Display omitted
► CTCF-binding locations are highly conserved across mammals ► New locations for CTCF binding are carried by SINE repeats in many mammals ► Ancient and newly born CTCF-binding events similarly demarcate chromatin barriers ► Retroelements can reposition organizing elements throughout the genome
Evolutionary analysis of six divergent mammals uncovers both highly conserved and species-specific binding locations of the chromatin organizer, CTCF. This study reveals that activation of retroelements drives genome evolution by repositioning genome-organizing elements.
To mechanistically characterize the microevolutionary processes active in altering transcription factor (TF) binding among closely related mammals, we compared the genome-wide binding of three ...tissue-specific TFs that control liver gene expression in six rodents. Despite an overall fast turnover of TF binding locations between species, we identified thousands of TF regions of highly constrained TF binding intensity. Although individual mutations in bound sequence motifs can influence TF binding, most binding differences occur in the absence of nearby sequence variations. Instead, combinatorial binding was found to be significant for genetic and evolutionary stability; cobound TFs tend to disappear in concert and were sensitive to genetic knockout of partner TFs. The large, qualitative differences in genomic regions bound between closely related mammals, when contrasted with the smaller, quantitative TF binding differences among Drosophila species, illustrate how genome structure and population genetics together shape regulatory evolution.
Display omitted
•Earliest steps of regulatory evolution in mammals captured using five mouse species•Interspecies differences in TF binding are rarely caused by DNA variation in motifs•Cobound TFs change their genomic binding cooperatively in closely related mammals•Genetic knockouts revealed the extent of cooperative stabilization in TF binding clusters
Microevolutionary mechanisms create different transcription factor binding patterns between mammals, shedding light on the regulatory mechanisms partially underlying speciation.
PDF
