Abstract
The mouse X-inactivation center (Xic) locus represents a powerful model for understanding the links between genome architecture and gene regulation, with the non-coding genes Xist and Tsix showing opposite developmental expression patterns while being organized as an overlapping sense/antisense unit. The Xic is organized into two topologically associating domains (TADs) but the role of this architecture in orchestrating cis-regulatory information remains elusive. To explore this, we generated genomic inversions that swap the Xist/Tsix transcriptional unit and place their promoters in each other’s TAD. We found that this led to a switch in their expression dynamics: Xist became precociously and ectopically upregulated, both in male and female pluripotent cells, while Tsix expression aberrantly persisted during differentiation. The topological partitioning of the Xic is thus critical to ensure proper developmental timing of X inactivation. Our study illustrates how the genomic architecture of cis-regulatory landscapes can affect the regulation of mammalian developmental processes.
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Data availability
Data have been deposited in the NCBI GEO under the accession number GSE111205. Reagents, cell lines and other data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Code availability
Our custom pipeline for 5C data processing, 5C-Pro, is available at https://github.com/bioinfo-pf-curie/5C-Pro. Custom codes used in this study will be provided upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Heard laboratory for their technical input and critical discussions; D. Noordermeer for critical discussion and advice on Capture-C data analysis and interpretation; A. Chow from the Guttman laboratory for RAP-DNA cell culture; members of the Bourc’his laboratory; C. Reyes and A. Rapinat from the Nanostring platform and J. M. Telenius, M. Oudelaar and D. Downes from the Hughes and Higgs laboratories. This work was supported by an ERC Advanced Investigator award (ERC-2014-AdG no. 671027), Labelisation La Ligue, FRM (grant no. DEI20151234398), ANR DoseX 2017, Labex DEEP (no. ANR-11-LBX-0044), part of the IDEX Idex PSL (no. ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL) and ABS4NGS (no. ANR-11-BINF-0001) to E.H.; NWO-ALW Rubicon (no. 825.13.002) and Veni (no. 863.15.016) fellowships to J.G.v.B.; Région Ile-de-France (DIM Biothérapies) and Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (no. FDT20160435295) fellowships to R.G.; Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship (no. 201369/Z/16/Z) to J.J.Z.; MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship (no. MR/R008108) to J.D.; Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (no. 106130/Z/14/Z) to J.R.H.; New York Stem Cell Foundation and California Institute of Technology funds to M.G. (M.G. is a New York Stem Cell Foundation—Robertson Investigator); Novartis Foundation and European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 759366 ‘BioMeTre’) to L.G.; LabEx and EquipEx (nos. ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL, ANR-11-LBX-0044 and ‘INCa-DGOS-4654’ SIRIC11-002) to the Nanostring platform of Institut Curie; Equipex (no. ANR-10-EQPX-03), France Génomique Consortium from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (‘Investissements d’Avenir’ program; no. ANR-10-INBS-09-08) and Canceropole Ile-de-France and by the SiRIC-Curie program—SiRIC grant (no. INCa-DGOS-4654) to the ICGex Next Generation Sequencing platform of the Institut Curie.
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J.G.v.B., J.G. and E.H. conceived the study, with support from R.G., L.G. and E.P.N. J.G.v.B., N.S. (lead), R.G., A.J.S., Y.Z., E.d.W. and L.G. (equal) conducted the formal analysis. J.G.v.B and R.G. led the investigation. C.G., A.J.S., C.P., E.P.N., J.J.Z. and S.L. supported the investigation. J.D., Y.Z., L.G., J.D., J.R.H. and D.R.H. provided resources. J.G.v.B. and E.H. wrote and prepared the original draft, with support from E.P.N., R.G. and C.G and input from all authors. R.G. and E.H. led the revision and editing of the article, with support from J.G.v.B. J.G.v.B. and R.G. provided data visualization. J.G.v.B., R.G. and E.H. supervised the study, with support from J.D., D.G., S.B., M.G., J.R.H., D.R.H. and J.G. The funding was acquired by E.H., J.G.v.B. and J.G.
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van Bemmel, J.G., Galupa, R., Gard, C. et al. The bipartite TAD organization of the X-inactivation center ensures opposing developmental regulation of Tsix and Xist. Nat Genet 51, 1024–1034 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0412-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0412-0
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