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Immune genes are primed for robust transcription by proximal long noncoding RNAs located in nuclear compartments
- Stephanie Fanucchi1,2,
- Ezio T. Fok1,2,
- Emiliano Dalla1,3,
- Youtaro Shibayama1,4,
- Kathleen Börner5,6,
- Erin Y. Chang7,
- Stoyan Stoychev8,
- Maxim Imakaev ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-5320-27289,
- Dirk Grimm5,6,10,
- Kevin C. Wang ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-5305-67917,
- Guoliang Li ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0003-1601-664011,
- Wing-Kin Sung12,13 &
- …
- Musa M. Mhlanga ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0003-1381-34091,14
Nature Geneticsvolume 51, pages138–150 (2019)Cite this article
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Abstract
Accumulation of trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3K4me3) on immune-related gene promoters underlies robust transcription during trained immunity. However, the molecular basis for this remains unknown. Here we show three-dimensional chromatin topology enables immune genes to engage in chromosomal contacts with a subset of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) we have defined as immune gene–priming lncRNAs (IPLs). We show that the prototypical IPL, UMLILO, acts in cis to direct the WD repeat-containing protein 5 (WDR5)–mixed lineage leukemia protein 1 (MLL1) complex across the chemokine promoters, facilitating their H3K4me3 epigenetic priming. This mechanism is shared amongst several trained immune genes. Training mediated by β-glucan epigenetically reprograms immune genes by upregulating IPLs in manner dependent on nuclear factor of activated T cells. The murine chemokine topologically associating domain lacks an IPL, and theCxcl genes are not trained. Strikingly, the insertion of UMLILO into the chemokine topologically associating domain in mouse macrophages resulted in training ofCxcl genes. This provides strong evidence that lncRNA-mediated regulation is central to the establishment of trained immunity.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. RNA-seq data are available in the Gene Expression Omnibus under accession numberGSE120621.
Change history
15 January 2019
In the version of this article initially published, ‘+’ and ‘–’ labels were missing from the graph keys at the bottom of Fig. 8d. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all members of the Gene Expression and Biophysics Laboratory (the M.M.M. laboratory). We thank M. Lusic, A Gontijo, F. Brombacher, Y. Negishi, L. Davignon and INTRIM consortium members for comments on the manuscript. The authors also thank S. Consalvi, M. Charpentier, A. Boucharlat and the Chemogenomic and Biological screening core facility at the Institut Pasteur in Paris for support during the course of this work. This research is supported by a Department of Science and Technology Centre of Competence Grant, an SA Medical Research Council SHIP grant, and a CSIR Parliamentary Grant, all to M.M.M., and M.M.M. is a Chan Zuckerberg Investigator of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. A full list of the investigators who contributed to the generation of the Blueprint Consortium data used in the ChIP-seq project is available fromhttp://www.blueprint-epigenome.eu. Funding for that project was provided by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 282510–BLUEPRINT.
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Authors and Affiliations
Gene Expression and Biophysics Group, Division of Chemical, Systems and Synthetic Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Stephanie Fanucchi, Ezio T. Fok, Emiliano Dalla, Youtaro Shibayama & Musa M. Mhlanga
BTRI, CSIR Biosciences, Pretoria, South Africa
Stephanie Fanucchi & Ezio T. Fok
Department of Medicine, Università degli Studi di Udine, Udine, Italy
Emiliano Dalla
RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Yokohama, Japan
Youtaro Shibayama
Department of Infectious Diseases/Virology, BioQuant Center, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany
Kathleen Börner & Dirk Grimm
Heidelberg Partner Site, German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Heidelberg, Germany
Kathleen Börner & Dirk Grimm
Department of Dermatology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Erin Y. Chang & Kevin C. Wang
Biomedical Technologies Group, CSIR Biosciences, Pretoria, South Africa
Stoyan Stoychev
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA
Maxim Imakaev
Cluster of Excellence CellNetworks, Heidelberg, Germany
Dirk Grimm
College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Guoliang Li
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
Wing-Kin Sung
Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
Wing-Kin Sung
Gene Expression and Biophysics Unit, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Musa M. Mhlanga
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Contributions
S.F. and M.M.M. designed the study. S.F. performed most experiments and collected and analyzed data. E.T.F. carried out 3C experiments and ChIP and analyzed data. E.D. analyzed CAGE, ChIP and RNA-seq data. Y.S. designed 3C experiments and performed RNA FISH experiments. K.B. and D.G. designed and produced the AAV vectors. E.Y.C. and K.C.W. helped design and perform the UMLILO knock-in experiment. S.S. carried out mass spectrometry experiments and analyzed data. M.I. analyzed Hi-C data. G.L. and W.-K.S. analyzed ChIP and ChIA-PET data. S.F., Y.S., M.I., E.T.F. and M.M.M. discussed and edited the paper. S.F. and M.M.M. co-wrote the paper. M.M.M. designed experiments, analyzed data and supervised the study.
Corresponding author
Correspondence toMusa M. Mhlanga.
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CSIR (Pretoria) has filed a provisional patent application on behalf of S.F., Y.S., E.D. and M.M.M. claiming some of the concepts described in this publication and licensed the patent to Immunolincs Genomics (Seattle, WA).
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Text and Figures
Supplementary Figures 1–18
Supplementary Table 1
Coordinates and tissue-specific expression of the IPLs
Supplementary Table 2
Chromatin interactions between TNF-responsive genes and lncRNAs in unstimulated HUVECs
Supplementary Table 3
Chromatin interactions between TNF-responsive genes and lncRNAs in HUVECs stimulated with TNF for 30 min
Supplementary Table 4
List of siRNA, LNA and oligonucleotide sequences
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Fanucchi, S., Fok, E.T., Dalla, E.et al. Immune genes are primed for robust transcription by proximal long noncoding RNAs located in nuclear compartments.Nat Genet51, 138–150 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0298-2
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