Nucleosome Maps of the Human Cytomegalovirus Genome Reveal a Temporal Switch in Chromatin Organization Linked to a Major IE Protein
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Nucleosome maps of the human cytomegalovirus genome reveal a temporal switch in chromatin organization linked to a major IE protein Einat Zalckvara,b, Christina Paulusc, Desiree Tilloa,b, Alexandra Asbach-Nitzschec, Yaniv Lublinga, Carla Winterlingc,1, Nicholas Striederc,2, Katrin Mückec, Felicia Goodrumd, Eran Segala,b,3, and Michael Nevelsc,3 Departments of aComputer Science and Applied Mathematics and bMolecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel; cInstitute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University of Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany; and dDepartment of Immunobiology, BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 65721 Edited* by Thomas Shenk, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved June 27, 2013 (received for review March 25, 2013) Human CMV (hCMV) establishes lifelong infections in most of us, Human CMV (hCMV), one of eight human herpesviruses, causing developmental defects in human embryos and life-threat- establishes lifelong infections in most people worldwide. The ening disease in immunocompromised individuals. During produc- virus is best known for causing developmental defects in human tive infection, the viral >230,000-bp dsDNA genome is expressed embryos and major disease or death in immunocompromised widely and in a temporal cascade. The hCMV genome does not individuals, including AIDS, cancer, and transplant patients carry histones when encapsidated but has been proposed to form (14, 15). hCMV is among the largest and most complex viruses presently known. During productive infection of human cells, the nucleosomes after release into the host cell nucleus. Here, we ∼ present hCMV genome-wide nucleosome occupancy and nascent viral 235,000-bp dsDNA genome is expressed extensively and in transcript maps during infection of permissive human primary a temporal cascade of immediate-early (IE), early, and late transcription. The most abundant gene products in the IE phase cells. We show that nucleosomes occupy nuclear viral DNA in of hCMV infection are expressed from the viral major IE tran- a nonrandom and highly predictable fashion. At early times of scription unit. The predominant major IE protein species are the infection, nucleosomes associate with the hCMV genome largely nuclear phosphoproteins IE1-72kDa (also known as IE72, pUL123, according to their intrinsic DNA sequence preferences, indicating or IE1) and IE2-86kDa (also known as IE86, pUL122, or IE2). that initial nucleosome formation is genetically encoded in the These viral proteins are key transcriptional regulators that are virus. However, as infection proceeds to the late phase, nucleo- well-known for activating viral gene expression to facilitate somes redistribute extensively to establish patterns mostly deter- productive infection (14, 16, 17). Notably, IE1 engages in host mined by nongenetic factors. We propose that these factors nuclear interactions with both the interchromatin and chromatin include key regulators of viral gene expression encoded at the compartments (18), including human proteins involved in his- hCMV major immediate-early (IE) locus. Indeed, mutant virus tone modification (19) and nucleosome assembly (20). genomes deficient for IE1 expression exhibit globally increased The genomes of hCMV and other herpesviruses do not carry nucleosome loads and reduced nucleosome dynamics compared histones when encapsidated (21–23). However, on release from with WT genomes. The temporal nucleosome occupancy differen- virus capsids into cell nuclei, hCMV DNA associates with host- ces between IE1-deficient and WT viruses correlate inversely with derived histones likely forming nucleosomes (24). Progression changes in the pattern of viral nascent and total transcript accu- through the viral transcriptional program concurs with changes mulation. These results provide a framework of spatial and tem- in posttranslational histone modifications as analyzed at indi- – poral nucleosome organization across the genome of a major vidual viral genomic sites (25 29). However, information on the human pathogen and suggest that an hCMV major IE protein gov- nucleosomal organization and function of hCMV chromatin erns overall viral chromatin structure and function. during infection is limited, in part because no genome-wide studies are available. For instance, it is not known whether the hCMV genome has evolved to contain nucleosome favorable herpesvirus | functional genomics | epigenetic regulation | ChIP-chip and disfavorable sequences, if the viral DNA forms nucleosomes in an organized fashion, how the virus may control its nucleo- uclear DNA is typically organized and maneuvered through some organization, and how nucleosome occupancy may regu- Nnucleosomes that individually assemble ∼147 bp of DNA in late the cascade of viral transcription. 1.65 superhelical turns around a core histone octamer composed To address these questions, we generated high-resolution of a central H3-H4 tetramer flanked by two H2A-H2B dimers spatial and temporal maps of nucleosome occupancy and (na- (1, 2). Additionally, linker histone H1 binds to the nucleosome at scent) transcription across entire hCMV genomes after infection the DNA entry–exit points outside the octamer. Nucleosomes have higher intrinsic affinity for particular DNA sequences, reflecting the ability of the sequence to bend sharply (3, 4). We Author contributions: F.G., E.S., and M.N. designed research; C.P., A.A.-N., C.W., N.S., and have previously shown that these sequence preferences are not K.M. performed experiments; E.Z., D.T., Y.L., F.G., E.S., and M.N. analyzed data; E.Z., D.T., only relevant in vitro but also predictive of nucleosome occu- F.G., E.S., and M.N. interpreted data; and E.Z., C.P., D.T., F.G., E.S., and M.N. wrote the paper. fl pancy across eukaryotic genomes in vivo (5–9). Nucleosome The authors declare no con ict of interest. occupancy and positioning is also controlled by remodeling ma- *This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor. chines, which may read out DNA sequence features to establish Data deposition: The data reported in this paper are available at http://genie.weizmann. specific nucleosome patterns (10), and structural alterations to ac.il/pubs/hcmv2013. 1 the histone octamer, including histone variant exchange and Present address: Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, 10117 Berlin, Germany. posttranslational modifications. These alterations can directly 2Present address: Institute for Biochemistry I, University of Regensburg, 93053 affect nucleosome properties and/or may serve to recruit chro- Regensburg, Germany. – matin-modifying proteins (11 13). The dynamic regulation of 3To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] or genome accessibility through nucleosomes is thought to affect [email protected]. transcription and most other DNA-based nuclear processes in This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. only partly resolved ways. 1073/pnas.1305548110/-/DCSupplemental. 13126–13131 | PNAS | August 6, 2013 | vol. 110 | no. 32 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1305548110 of permissive human primary cells with WT or IE1-deficient (dlIE1) 48, or 96 h. Subsequently, we either performed ChIP using an viruses. Our results suggest that, despite not carrying histones when antibody directed against the H3 histone fold domain or pre- encapsidated, hCMV genomes undergo organized nucleosome pared mononucleosomes by MNase digestion. The resulting in- formation and encode nucleosome reorganizing mechanisms to put and output (for ChIP-chip) or sonicated and nucleosomal function properly within the chromatin environment of their host. (for MNase-chip) DNA sample pairs were subjected to dual- color labeling and cohybridized to custom-designed tiling arrays Results covering most of the hCMV genome at ∼7-bp resolution. By Nucleosomes Initially Occupy hCMV Genomes According to Their DNA using tiling arrays, we selectively measured the viral (but not Sequence Preferences but Undergo Massive Reorganization as Infection human) DNA sequences associated with H3 or nucleosomes. Proceeds. Our work has suggested that hCMV DNA forms Subsequently, we determined the average nucleosome occupancy nucleosomes in the nuclei of productively infected human cells per base pair. Data were obtained from two to six independent (24). This view is supported by the fact that hCMV genomes infections per each virus and time point. There was high corre- associate with all four classes of human core histones (H2A, lation between replicate results (Fig. S2A), and signal intensities H2B, H3, and H4) as well as the human linker histone (H1) as were not generally guanosine-cytidine (GC)-biased (Fig. S2C). determined by ChIP analysis (Fig. S1A). Although the histone We found that the nucleosome patterns derived from ChIP- content of hCMV chromatin is generally lower compared with chip and MNase-chip analyses were highly similar, at least at the bulk cellular chromatin (Fig. S1A) (24), core histones associate 8 h time point (ρ = 0.8 at 8 h and 0.41 at 48 h postinfection) (Fig. with nuclear viral DNA at a ratio equaling the histone ratio of 1B). The modest differences observed at 48 h might be caused by chromatinized cellular genomic sites (H2A:H2B:H3:H4 ∼ 1:1:1:1) detection of slightly dissimilar nucleosome populations by meth- (Fig. S1A). Accordingly, hCMV nuclear DNA is at least partially ods involving fixed (ChIP-chip) or nonfixed (MNase-chip) chro- present