Cbx3 Maintains Lineage Specificity During Neural Differentiation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Downloaded from genesdev.cshlp.org on September 27, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press RESEARCH COMMUNICATION et al. 2013). However, Cbx3 is also enriched at promoters Cbx3 maintains lineage of mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF)-derived pre-iPSCs specificity during neural (preinduced pluripotent stem cells), where it does not cor- relate with H3K9 methylation (Sridharan et al. 2013). differentiation RNAi knockdown of Cbx3 promotes reprogramming of fi- broblasts to iPSCs (Sridharan et al. 2013). Chengyang Huang,1,2 Trent Su,1 Yong Xue,1 1 3 1 Cbx3 plays important roles in developmental processes Chen Cheng, Fides D. Lay, Robin A. McKee, (Morikawa et al. 2013). In model systems, Cbx3 promotes Meiyang Li,2 Ajay Vashisht,1 James Wohlschlegel,1 neuronal maturation, kidney development, differentia- Bennett G. Novitch,4 Kathrin Plath,1 tion of ESCs to smooth muscle in culture, and embryonic Siavash K. Kurdistani,1 and Michael Carey1 arteriogenesis (Xiao et al. 2011; Dihazi et al. 2015; Oshiro et al. 2015). Little is known of how Cbx3 functions in dif- 1Department of Biological Chemistry, Eli and Edythe Broad ferentiation, but its promoter localization suggested that Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, David it might directly affect transcription through the preinitia- Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los tion complex (PIC) (Grunberg and Hahn 2013; Allen and Angeles, Los Angeles California 90095, USA; 2Department of Taatjes 2015). The PIC is assembled in response to activa- Neurobiology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou tors and requires the Mediator coactivator complex to re- 515041, China; 3Department of Molecular, Cell, and cruit the general transcription factors and Pol II (Chen Developmental Biology, University of California at Los Angeles, et al. 2012). Core Mediator contains 25 subunits constitut- Los Angeles, California 90095, USA; 4Department of ing three structurally distinct modules distributed into Neurobiology, Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative two major complexes: One bears Med26 and Pol II, and Medicine and Stem Cell Research, David Geffen School of the other bears a four-subunit Cdk8 module (Malik and Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles Roeder 2010; Conaway and Conaway 2013; Tsai et al. California 90095, USA 2014; Allen and Taatjes 2015). The specific function of Med26 is not fully established, although it recruits the Chromobox homolog 3 (Cbx3/heterochromatin protein Pol II superelongation complex containing several ELL/ 1γ [HP1γ]) stimulates cell differentiation, but its mecha- EAF family members, whose misregulation has been asso- nism is unknown. We found that Cbx3 binds to gene pro- ciated with cancer (Takahashi et al. 2011; Zhou et al. moters upon differentiation of murine embryonic stem 2012). D. melanogaster HP1 interacts directly with cells (ESCs) to neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and recruits Med26 (Marr et al. 2014), and Cbx3 is enriched in Media- the Mediator subunit Med26. RNAi knockdown of either tor preparations from differentiated neural precursors Cbx3 or Med26 inhibits neural differentiation while up- (Sridharan et al. 2013). regulating genes involved in mesodermal lineage deci- The observation that Cbx3 enriches in ESC gene bodies and pre-iPSC promoters suggested that the switch in sions. Thus, Cbx3 and Med26 together ensure the fidelity distribution could influence gene regulation during differ- of lineage specification by enhancing the expression of entiation. To determine whether this is Cbx3’s mecha- neural genes and down-regulating genes specific to alter- nism of action, we used a model system in which ESCs native fates. were efficiently induced to differentiate into neural pre- Supplemental material is available for this article. cursor cells (NPCs) (Brustle et al. 1997). The positioning and role of Cbx3 were interrogated by chromatin immu- Received October 15, 2016; revised version accepted noprecipitation (ChIP) and RNAi. Our analysis revealed January 27, 2017. that Cbx3 and Med26 colocalize to promoters of both neu- ral and mesodermal genes during differentiation and have complementary roles in stabilizing NPC fate. Decreasing Chromobox homolog 3 (Cbx3) is a member of the hetero- Med26 or Cbx3 levels early in differentiation led to the chromatin protein 1 (HP1) family that binds to dimethy- down-regulation of neural lineage genes and up-regulation lated and trimethylated histone 3 Lys9 (H3K9) via a of mesodermal lineage genes. Increased binding of Cdk8 conserved chromodomain. Cbx3 (HP1γ) and its homologs, correlated with decreased mesodermal gene expression Cbx5 (HP1α) and Cbx1 (HP1β), have been implicated in during normal differentiation and decreased neural gene both the repression and activation of gene transcription expression upon Cbx3 depletion. (Kwon and Workman 2011; Canzio et al. 2014). In Droso- phila melanogaster, Cbx3 associates with both the his- tone chaperone FACT and RNA polymerase II (Pol II) Results and Discussion (Kwon et al. 2010). Cbx3 occupies the transcribed regions of genes in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and cancer cell Cbx3 binds to gene promoters during differentiation lines, where it influences splicing and correlates with To address whether Cbx3 becomes enriched at promoters H3K9 methylation (Smallwood et al. 2012; Sridharan upon differentiation, we used ITSF medium to convert © 2017 Huang et al. This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring [Keywords: Cbx3; Med26; embryonic stem cell; neural precursor; Harbor Laboratory Press for the first six months after the full-issue publi- preinitiation complex; mesoderm] cation date (see http://genesdev.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After Corresponding author: [email protected] six months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (At- Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.292169. tribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creati- 116. vecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. GENES & DEVELOPMENT 31:241–246 Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; ISSN 0890-9369/17; www.genesdev.org 241 Downloaded from genesdev.cshlp.org on September 27, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Huang et al. ESCs to NPCs and performed genome-wide ChIP-seq ates with gene activity, while its binding negatively corre- (ChIP combined with high-throughput sequencing) of lates with expression of genes involved in ESC growth. Cbx3 in NPCs. Differentiation was validated by im- munostaining for Oct4 in the ESCs and Nestin in the ESC-derived NPCs. Nestin-positive NPCs were able to Cbx3 knockdown decreases neural differentiation and differentiate into Tuj1+ neurons upon EGF and FGF2 with- up-regulates mesodermal genes drawal (Supplemental Fig. S1A). Statistical analyses of Cbx3 ChIP-seq peaks showed that To further explore the role of Cbx3 during differentiation, it reproducibly enriches at the promoters of genes in NPCs we used RNAi knockdown (Cbx3 knockdown) in either (Fig. 1A) and less so in gene bodies (Fig. 1B; Supplemental monolayer culture (Fig. 2A,B; Supplemental Fig. S2A)or Fig. S1B). This binding pattern is distinct from ESCs, embryoid body (EB) culture during neural differentiation where Cbx3 bound primarily within gene bodies (Srid- (Fig. 2C,D). In monolayer culture, Sox1, an early marker haran et al. 2013). Although enrichment of Pol II at the of neural fate, appeared in most cells by day 8 (Fig. 2A; promoter correlates roughly with that of Cbx3 in the cen- Pevny et al. 1998). Although the total cell number did ter of the distribution (Fig. 1A), there was only a modest not change significantly upon Cbx3 knockdown, the ex- correlation with gene expression when considering the pression of Sox1 significantly decreased (Fig. 2A,B). Anal- top, middle, and bottom Cbx3-bound genes (Fig. 1C). ysis of an earlier time point, day 7, revealed little Sox1 Therefore, Cbx3 enrichment at the promoter during expression in the control and virtually no effect of Cbx3 differentiation does not correlate with increased gene knockdown (Supplemental Fig. S2B,C). To confirm the expression. function of Cbx3, we used serum-free EBs (SFEBs), an We then investigated differentiation-regulated genes alternate system to analyze ESC neural differentiation, bound by Cbx3 at the promoter. Gene ontology (GO) and found a significant decrease in SFEBs upon Cbx3 analysis revealed that genes down-regulated during differ- knockdown (Fig. 2C,D; Watanabe et al. 2005; Huang entiation were required for cellular metabolism, a charac- et al. 2010). Collectively, these data suggest that Cbx3 teristic of rapidly growing self-renewing ESCs (Fig. 1D, top positively regulates neural fate determination. panels). In contrast, genes involved in nervous system de- To investigate the regulatory mechanisms of Cbx3 in velopment and neural differentiation were up-regulated differentiation, we performed genome-wide RNA se- (Fig. 1D, bottom panels), including signaling molecules quencing (RNA-seq) analysis on NPCs 3 d after siControl and transcription factors; i.e., Sox1 and Foxd3 (Fig. 1E). or siCbx3 treatment (Fig. 2A). We used monolayer NPCs Browser plots of select neural fate genes showed colocali- because the differentiation status in culture was more uni- zation of Pol II and Cbx3 at the promoter (Fig. 1F; Supple- form versus SFEBs. Figure 2E is an expression heat map mental Fig. S1C). We conclude that Cbx3 localizes to that plots Cbx3-bound genes down-regulated or up-regu- promoters