The expansion of CAG/CTG repeats is responsible for many diseases, including Huntington's disease (HD) and myotonic dystrophy 1. CAG/CTG expansions are unstable in selective somatic tissues, which accelerates disease progression. The mechanisms underlying repeat instability are complex, and it remains unclear whether chromatin structure and/or transcription contribute to somatic CAG/CTG instability in vivo. To address these issues, we investigated the relationship between CAG instability, chromatin structure, and transcription at the HD locus using the R6/1 and R6/2 HD transgenic mouse lines. These mice express a similar transgene, albeit integrated at a different site, and recapitulate HD tissue-specific instability. We show that instability rates are increased in R6/2 tissues as compared to R6/1 matched-samples. High transgene expression levels and chromatin accessibility correlated with the increased CAG instability of R6/2 mice. Transgene mRNA and H3K4 trimethylation at the HD locus were increased, whereas H3K9 dimethylation was reduced in R6/2 tissues relative to R6/1 matched-tissues. However, the levels of transgene expression and these specific histone marks were similar in the striatum and cerebellum, two tissues showing very different CAG instability levels, irrespective of mouse line. Interestingly, the levels of elongating RNA Pol II at the HD locus, but not the initiating form of RNA Pol II, were tissue-specific and correlated with CAG instability levels. Similarly, H3K36 trimethylation, a mark associated with transcription elongation, was specifically increased at the HD locus in the striatum and not in the cerebellum. Together, our data support the view that transcription modulates somatic CAG instability in vivo. More specifically, our results suggest for the first time that transcription elongation is regulated in a tissue-dependent manner, contributing to tissue-selective CAG instability.

Expansion of CAG/CTG repeats is the underlying cause of >fourteen genetic disorders, including Huntington’s disease (HD) and myotonic dystrophy. The mutational process is ongoing, with increases in repeat size enhancing the toxicity of the expansion in specific tissues. In many repeat diseases the repeats exhibit high instability in the striatum, whereas instability is minimal in the cerebellum. We provide molecular insights as to how base excision repair (BER) protein stoichiometry may contribute to the tissue-selective instability of CAG/CTG repeats by using specific repair assays. Oligonucleotide substrates with an abasic site were mixed with either reconstituted BER protein stoichiometries mimicking the levels present in HD mouse striatum or cerebellum, or with protein extracts prepared from HD mouse striatum or cerebellum. In both cases, repair efficiency at CAG/CTG repeats and at control DNA sequences was markedly reduced under the striatal conditions, likely due to the lower level of APE1, FEN1 and LIG1. Damage located towards the 5’ end of the repeat tract was poorly repaired accumulating incompletely processed intermediates as compared to an AP lesion in the centre or at the 3’ end of the repeats or within a control sequences. Moreover, repair of lesions at the 5’ end of CAG or CTG repeats involved multinucleotide synthesis, particularly under the cerebellar stoichiometry, suggesting that long-patch BER processes lesions at sequences susceptible to hairpin formation. Our results show that BER stoichiometry, nucleotide sequence and DNA damage position modulate repair outcome, and suggest that a suboptimal LP-BER activity promotes CAG/CTG repeat instability.