Though the linkages between germline mutations of BRCA1 and hereditary breast cancer are well known, recent evidence suggests that altered BRCA1 transcription may also contribute to sporadic forms of breast cancer. Here we show that BRCA1 expression is controlled by a dynamic equilibrium between transcriptional co-activators and co-repressors that govern histone acetylation and DNA accessibility at the BRCA1 promoter. Eviction of the transcriptional co-repressor and metabolic sensor, C-terminal-binding protein (CtBP) plays a central role in this regulation. Loss of CtBP from the BRCA1 promoter through either estrogen induction, RNAi depletion or increased NAD+/NADH ratio results in HDAC1 dismissal, elevated histone acetylation, and increased BRCA1 transcription. The active control of chromatin marks, DNA accessibility and gene expression at the BRCA1 promoter by this “metabolic switch” provides an important molecular link between caloric intake and tumor suppressor expression in mammary cells.

Recurrent somatic mutations of H3F3A in aggressive pediatric high-grade gliomas generate K27M or G34R/V mutant histone H3.3. H3.3-G34R/V mutants are common in tumors with mutations in p53 and ATRX, an H3.3-specific chromatin remodeler. To gain insight into the role of H3-G34R, we generated fission yeast that express only the mutant histone H3. H3-G34R specifically reduces H3K36 tri-methylation and H3K36 acetylation, and mutants show partial transcriptional overlap with set2 deletions. H3-G34R mutants exhibit genomic instability and increased replication stress, including slowed replication fork restart, although DNA replication checkpoints are functional. H3-G34R mutants are defective for DNA damage repair by homologous recombination (HR), and have altered HR protein dynamics in both damaged and untreated cells. These data suggest H3-G34R slows resolution of HR-mediated repair and that unresolved replication intermediates impair chromosome segregation. This analysis of H3-G34R mutant fission yeast provides mechanistic insight into how G34R mutation may promote genomic instability in glioma.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27406.001

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Transcription is a multi-stage process that coordinates several steps within the transcription cycle including chromatin reorganization, RNA polymerase II recruitment, initiation, promoter clearance and elongation. Recent advances have identified the super elongation complex, containing the eleven-nineteen lysine-rich leukaemia (ELL) protein, as a key regulator of transcriptional elongation. Here we show that ELL has a diverse and kinetically distinct role before its assembly into the super elongation complex by stabilizing Pol II recruitment/initiation and entry into the pause site. Loss of ELL destabilizes the pre-initiation complexes and results in disruption of early elongation and promoter proximal chromatin structure before recruitment of AFF4 and other super elongation complex components. These changes result in significantly reduced transcriptional activation of rapidly induced genes. Thus, ELL has an early and essential role during rapid high-amplitude gene expression that is required for both Pol II pause site entry and release.

Human telomere biology disorders (TBD)/short telomere syndromes (STS) are heterogeneous disorders caused by inherited loss-of-function mutations in telomere-associated genes. Here, we identify three germline heterozygous missense variants in RPA1 gene in four unrelated probands presenting with short telomeres and varying clinical features of TBD/STS including bone marrow failure, myelodysplastic syndrome, T- and B-cell lymphopenia, pulmonary fibrosis, or skin manifestations. All variants cluster to DNA binding domain A of RPA1 protein. RPA1 is a single-strand DNA-binding protein required for DNA replication and repair and involved in telomere maintenance. We showed that RPA1E240K and RPA1V227A proteins exhibit increased binding to single-strand and telomeric DNA, implying a gain in DNA-binding function while RPA1T270A has binding properties similar to wild type protein. To study the mutational effect in a cellular system, we used CRISPR/Cas9 to knock-in the RPA1E240K mutation into healthy inducible pluripotent stem cells. This resulted in severe telomere shortening and impaired hematopoietic differentiation. Furthermore, in patient with RPA1E240K, we discovered somatic genetic rescue (SGR) in hematopoietic cells due to an acquired truncating cis RPA1 mutation or a uniparental isodisomy 17p with loss of mutant allele, coinciding with stabilized blood counts. Using single-cell sequencing, the two SGR events were proven to be independently acquired in hematopoietic stem cells. In summary, we describe the first human disease caused by germline RPA1 variants in individuals with TBD/STS.

Sequencing of cancer genomes has identified recurrent somatic mutations in histones, termed oncohistones, which are frequently poorly understood. Previously we showed that fission yeast expressing only the H3.3G34R mutant identified in aggressive pediatric glioma had reduced H3K36 trimethylation and acetylation, increased genomic instability and replicative stress, and defective homology-dependent DNA damage repair (Yadav et al., 2017). Here we show that surprisingly distinct phenotypes result from G34V (also in glioma) and G34W (giant cell tumors of bone) mutations, differentially affecting H3K36 modifications, subtelomeric silencing, genomic stability, sensitivity to irradiation, alkylating agents, hydroxyurea and influencing DNA repair. In cancer, only one of thirty alleles encoding H3 is mutated. Whilst co-expression of wild-type H3 rescues most G34 mutant phenotypes, G34R causes dominant hydroxyurea sensitivity and homologous recombination defects, and dominant subtelomeric silencing. Together, these studies demonstrate the complexity associated with different substitutions at even a single residue in H3 and highlight the utility of genetically tractable systems for their analysis.

We describe here the identification and functional characterization of the enzyme O-GlcNAcase (OGA) as an RNA polymerase II elongation factor. Using in vitro transcription elongation assays, we show that OGA activity is required for elongation in a crude nuclear extract system, whereas in a purified system devoid of OGA the addition of rOGA inhibited elongation. Furthermore, OGA is physically associated with the known RNA polymerase II (pol II) pausing/elongation factors SPT5 and TRIM28-KAP1-TIF1␤, and a purified OGA-SPT5-TIF1␤ complex has elongation properties. Lastly, ChIP-seq experiments show that OGA maps to the transcriptional start site/5 ends of genes, showing considerable overlap with RNA pol II, SPT5, TRIM28-KAP1-TIF1␤, and O-GlcNAc itself. These data all point to OGA as a component of the RNA pol II elongation machinery regulating elongation genome-wide. Our results add a novel and unexpected dimension to the regulation of elongation by the insertion of O-GlcNAc cycling into the pol II elongation regulatory dynamics.RNA polymerase II is the species of polymerase that transcribes the protein-coding genes in the cell. Largely based on in vitro transcription data and bacterial transcriptional regulation, it was thought that the pathway of transcription initiation was the de novo assembly and recruitment of general factors and pol II 4 into a preinitiation complex at promoters. In other words, transcription was solely controlled by whether initiation occurred or not. However, in the late 1980s, a transcriptionally engaged pol II was found on several genes, located roughly at ϩ50 relative to the transcriptional start site (TSS) (1-3). More recently, genome-wide approaches have shown that paused pol II exists on at least 40% of promoters in the genome (4 -9).These data show that the regulation of elongation is a significant and widespread method by which cells regulate gene expression.Biochemically, the establishment of a paused polymerase requires the recruitment of DSIF and NELF to pol II early in elongation to prevent pol II from productive elongation (10 -13). Release of the paused polymerase is achieved with P-TEFb phosphorylation of DSIF and NELF, ejecting NELF from pol II and converting DSIF into a positive elongation factor (14,15). The more recent discoveries of additional factors likely involved in pause establishment and release include human capping enzyme (16), the TFIIH-associated kinase, CDK7 (17, 18), the TFIIH ERCC3 helicase (19), , Integrator (23,24), ELL (25), TFIIS (26), TRIM28-KAP1-TIF1␤ (27, 28), Top1 (29), SEC (30), PAF complex (31, 32), and Gdown1 (33). The plethora of factors suggests that more complicated dynamics are at play in regulating pausing and elongation. Additionally, it is not clear, and indeed difficult to know, whether all of the factors involved in pol II pausing and elongation have been identified. This difficulty is due mostly to the absence of a human cell-based in vitro transcription system that recapitulates a paused polymerase and with which the full complement of...

To gain a better understanding of the sequence patterns that characterize positioned nucleosomes, we first performed an analysis of the periodicities of the 256 tetranucleotides in a yeast genome-wide library of nucleosomal DNA sequences that was prepared by in vitro reconstitution. The approach entailed the identification and analysis of 24 unique tetranucleotides that were defined by 8 consensus sequences. These consensus sequences were shown to be responsible for most if not all of the tetranucleotide and dinucleotide periodicities displayed by the entire library, demonstrating that the periodicities of dinucleotides that characterize the yeast genome are, in actuality, due primarily to the 8 consensus sequences. A novel combination of experimental and bioinformatic approaches was then used to show that these tetranucleotides are important for preferred formation of nucleosomes at specific sites along DNA in vitro. These results were then compared to tetranucleotide patterns in genome-wide in vivo libraries from yeast and C. elegans in order to assess the contributions of DNA sequence in the control of nucleosome residency in the cell. These comparisons revealed striking similarities in the tetranucleotide occurrence profiles that are likely to be involved in nucleosome positioning in both in vitro and in vivo libraries, suggesting that DNA sequence is an important factor in the control of nucleosome placement in vivo. However, the strengths of the tetranucleotide periodicities were 3–4 fold higher in the in vitro as compared to the in vivo libraries, which implies that DNA sequence plays less of a role in dictating nucleosome positions in vivo. The results of this study have important implications for models of sequence-dependent positioning since they suggest that a defined subset of tetranucleotides is involved in preferred nucleosome occupancy and that these tetranucleotides are the major source of the dinucleotide periodicities that are characteristic of positioned nucleosomes.