Dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) is an underutilized information-rich biofluid potentially useful in health status monitoring applications whose contents remain challenging to characterize. Here, we present a facile microneedle approach for dermal ISF extraction with minimal pain and no blistering for human subjects and rats. Extracted ISF volumes were sufficient for determining transcriptome, and proteome signatures. We noted similar profiles in ISF, serum, and plasma samples, suggesting that ISF can be a proxy for direct blood sampling. Dynamic changes in RNA-seq were recorded in ISF from induced hypoxia conditions. Finally, we report the first isolation and characterization, to our knowledge, of exosomes from dermal ISF. The ISF exosome concentration is 12–13 times more enriched when compared to plasma and serum and represents a previously unexplored biofluid for exosome isolation. This minimally invasive extraction approach can enable mechanistic studies of ISF and demonstrates the potential of ISF for real-time health monitoring applications.

The chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay is widely used to capture interactions between chromatin and regulatory proteins, but it is unknown how stable most native interactions are. Although live cell imaging suggests short-lived interactions at tandem gene arrays, current methods cannot measure rapid binding dynamics at single-copy genes. Here we show using a modified ChIP assay with sub-second temporal resolution that the time dependence of formaldehyde crosslinking can be used to extract in vivo on- and off-rates for site-specific chromatin interactions varying over a ~100-fold dynamic range. Using the method, we show that a regulatory process can shift weakly bound TATA-binding protein to stable promoter interactions, thereby facilitating transcription complex formation. This assay provides an approach for systematic, quantitative analyses of chromatin binding dynamics in vivo.

BackgroundThe sirtuins are a conserved family of NAD+-dependent histone/protein deacetylases that regulate numerous cellular processes, including heterochromatin formation and transcription. Multiple sirtuins are encoded by each eukaryotic genome, raising the possibility of cooperativity or functional overlap. The scope and variety of chromatin binding sites of the sirtuins in any specific organism remain unclear.ResultsHere we utilize the ChIP-seq technique to identify and functionally characterize the genome-wide targets of the sirtuins, Sir2, Hst1 to Hst4, and the DNA binding partner of Hst1, Sum 1, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Unexpectedly, Sir2, Hst1 and Sum1, but not the other sirtuins, exhibit co-enrichment at several classes of chromatin targets. These include telomeric repeat clusters, tRNA genes, and surprisingly, the open reading frames (ORFs) of multiple highly expressed RNA polymerase II-transcribed genes that function in processes such as fermentation, glycolysis, and translation. Repression of these target genes during the diauxic shift is specifically dependent on Sir2/Hst1/Sum1 binding to the ORF and sufficiently high intracellular NAD+ concentrations. Sir2 recruitment to the ORFs is independent of the canonical SIR complex and surprisingly requires Sum1. The shared Sir2/Hst1/Sum1 targets also significantly overlap with condensin and cohesin binding sites, where Sir2, Hst1, and Sum1 were found to be important for condensin and cohesin deposition, suggesting a possible mechanistic link between metabolism and chromatin architecture during the diauxic shift.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the existence of overlap in sirtuin function, and advances our understanding of conserved sirtuin-regulated functions, including the regulation of glycolytic gene expression and condensin loading.

TATA-binding protein (TBP) nucleates the assembly of the transcription preinitiation complex (PIC), and although TBP can bind promoters with high stability in vitro, recent results establish that virtually the entire TBP population is highly dynamic in yeast nuclei in vivo. This dynamic behavior is surprising in light of models that posit that a stable TBPcontaining scaffold facilitates transcription reinitiation at active promoters. The dynamic behavior of TBP is a consequence of the enzymatic activity of the essential Snf2/Swi2 ATPase Mot1, suggesting that ensuring a highly mobile TBP population is critical for transcriptional regulation on a global scale. Here high-resolution tiling arrays were used to define how perturbed TBP dynamics impact the precision of RNA synthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We find that Mot1 plays a broad role in establishing the precision and efficiency of RNA synthesis: In mot1-42 cells, RNA length changes were observed for 713 genes, about twice the number observed in set2D cells, which display a previously reported propensity for spurious initiation within open reading frames. Loss of Mot1 led to both aberrant transcription initiation and termination, with prematurely terminated transcripts representing the largest class of events. Genetic and genomic analyses support the conclusion that these effects on RNA length are mechanistically tied to dynamic TBP occupancies at certain types of promoters. These results suggest a new model whereby dynamic disassembly of the PIC can influence productive RNA synthesis.[Supplemental material is available online at http://www.genome.org. The microarray data from this study have been submitted to the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo) under accession no. GSE18283.]The RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription machinery consists of a collection of general transcription factors (GTFs) and the multisubunit Pol II enzyme itself (Reese 2003;Hahn 2004). Assembly of the Pol II preinitiation complex (PIC) on promoters is highly orchestrated by transcriptional regulators and coregulators that influence GTF recruitment by direct interaction with the transcription machinery and by modulating the promoter chromatin template (Hahn 2004). PIC assembly is nucleated by the TATAbinding protein (TBP), which physically interacts with multiple GTFs and DNA. TBP recruitment to promoters is often rate limiting for transcription in vivo (Pugh 2000).Interaction of the TBP saddle with the TATA box results in severe bending and unwinding of the DNA (Burley and Roeder 1996). In vitro, the resultant complex forms a specialized, longlived substrate for accrual of the other GTFs. Biochemical evidence indicates that a TBP-containing subcomplex remains on promoter DNA following the departure of Pol II (Hahn 2004). This complex, termed the scaffold, can facilitate transcription reinitiation in vitro (Hahn 2004). Although the in vitro evidence in support of a stable reinitiation intermediate is strong, PIC dynamics may be influenced by other factors...

Modifier of transcription 1 (Mot1) is a conserved and essential Swi2/Snf2 ATPase that can remove TATA-binding protein (TBP) from DNA using ATP hydrolysis and in so doing exerts global effects on transcription. Spt16 is also essential and functions globally in transcriptional regulation as a component of the facilitates chromatin transcription (FACT) histone chaperone complex. Here we demonstrate that Mot1 and Spt16 regulate a largely overlapping set of genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. As expected, Mot1 was found to control TBP levels at co-regulated promoters. In contrast, Spt16 did not affect TBP recruitment. On a global scale, Spt16 was required for Mot1 promoter localization, and Mot1 also affected Spt16 localization to genes. Interestingly, we found that Mot1 has an unanticipated role in establishing or maintaining the occupancy and positioning of nucleosomes at the 5 ends of genes. Spt16 has a broad role in regulating chromatin organization in gene bodies, including those nucleosomes affected by Mot1. These results suggest that the large scale overlap in Mot1 and Spt16 function arises from a combination of both their unique and shared functions in transcription complex assembly and chromatin structure regulation.