SummaryATP-dependent chromatin remodellers allow access to DNA for transcription factors and the general transcription machinery, but whether mammalian chromatin remodellers1–3 target specific nucleosomes to regulate transcription is unclear. Here, we present genome-wide remodeller-nucleosome interaction profiles for Chd1, Chd2, Chd4, Chd6, Chd8, Chd9, Brg1 and Ep400 in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. These remodellers bind one or both full nucleosomes that flank MNase-defined nucleosome-free promoter regions (NFRs), where they separate divergent transcription. Surprisingly, large CpG-rich NFRs that extend downstream of annotated transcriptional start sites (TSSs) are nevertheless chromatinized with non-nucleosomal or subnucleosomal histone variants (H3.3 and H2A.Z) and modifications (H3K4me3 and H3K27ac). RNA polymerase (pol) II therefore navigates hundreds of bp of altered chromatin in the sense direction before encountering an MNase-resistant nucleosome at the 3′ end of the NFR. Transcriptome analysis upon remodeller depletion reveals reciprocal mechanisms of transcriptional regulation by remodellers. Whereas at active genes individual remodellers play either positive or negative roles via altering nucleosome stability, at polycomb-enriched bivalent genes the same remodellers act in an opposite manner. These findings indicate that remodellers target specific nucleosomes at the edge of NFRs, where they regulate ES cell transcriptional programs.

Pathogenic variants in BRCA1 and BRCA2 only explain the underlying genetic cause of about 10% of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer families. Because of cost‐effectiveness, multigene panel testing is often performed even if the clinical utility of testing most of the genes remains questionable. The purpose of our study was to assess the contribution of rare, deleterious‐predicted variants in DNA repair genes in familial breast cancer (BC) in a well‐characterized and homogeneous population. We analyzed 113 DNA repair genes selected from either an exome sequencing or a candidate gene approach in the GENESIS study, which includes familial BC cases with no BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and having a sister with BC ( N = 1,207), and general population controls ( N = 1,199). Sequencing data were filtered for rare loss‐of‐function variants (LoF) and likely deleterious missense variants (MV). We confirmed associations between LoF and MV in PALB2 , ATM and CHEK2 and BC occurrence. We also identified for the first time associations between FANCI , MAST1 , POLH and RTEL1 and BC susceptibility. Unlike other associated genes, carriers of an ATM LoF had a significantly higher risk of developing BC than carriers of an ATM MV (OR LoF = 17.4 vs. OR MV = 1.6; p Het = 0.002). Hence, our approach allowed us to specify BC relative risks associated with deleterious‐predicted variants in PALB2 , ATM and CHEK2 and to add MAST1 , POLH , RTEL1 and FANCI to the list of DNA repair genes possibly involved in BC susceptibility. We also highlight that different types of variants within the same gene can lead to different risk estimates.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies are becoming routinely used for the detection of novel and clinically actionable DNA variants at a pangenomic scale. Such analyses are now used in the clinical practice to enable precision medicine. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues are still one of the most abundant source of cancer clinical specimen, unfortunately this method of preparation is known to degrade DNA and therefore compromise subsequent analysis. Some studies have reported that variant detection can be performed on FFPE samples sequenced with NGS techniques, but few or none have done an in-depth coverage analysis and compared the influence of different state-of-the-art FFPE DNA extraction kits on the quality of the variant calling. Here, we generated 42 human whole-exome sequencing data sets from fresh-frozen (FF) and FFPE samples. These samples include normal and tumor tissues from two different organs (liver and colon), that we extracted with three different FFPE extraction kits (QIAamp DNA FFPE Tissue kit and GeneRead DNA FFPE kit from Qiagen, Maxwell™ RSC DNA FFPE Kit from Promega). We determined the rate of concordance of called variants between matched FF and FFPE samples on all common variants (representing at least 86% of the total number of variants for SNVs). The concordance rate is very high between all matched FF / FFPE pairs, with equivalent values for the three kits we analyzed. On the other hand, when looking at the difference between the total number of variants in FF and FFPE, we find a significant variation for the three different FFPE DNA extraction kits. Coverage analysis shows that FFPE samples have less good indicators than FF samples, yet the coverage quality remains above accepted thresholds. We detect limited but statistically significant variations in coverage indicator values between the three FFPE extraction kits. Globally, the GeneRead and QIAamp kits have better variant calling and coverage indicators than the Maxwell kit on the samples used in this study, although this kit performs better on some indicators and has advantages in terms of practical usage. Taken together, our results confirm the potential of FFPE samples analysis for clinical genomic studies, but also indicate that the choice of a FFPE DNA extraction kit should be done with careful testing and analysis beforehand in order to maximize the accuracy of the results.