Structure-based analysis of DNA sequence patterns guiding nucleosome positioning in vitro

Nucleosome positioning pattern derived from oligonucleotide compositions of genomic sequences

Availability of nucleosome positioning pattern(s) is crucial for chromatin studies. The matrix form of the pattern has been recently derived (I. Gabdank, D. Barash, E. N. Trifonov. J Biomol Struct Dyn 26, 403-412 (2009), and E. N. Trifonov. J Biomol Struct Dyn 27, 741-746 (2010)). In its simplified linear form it is described by the motif CGRAAATTTYCG. Oligonucleotide components of the motif (say, triplets GRA, RAA, AAA, etc.) would be expected to appear in eukaryotic sequences more frequently. In this work we attempted the reconstruction of the bendability patterns for 13 genomes by a novel approach-extension of highest frequency trinucleotides. The consensus of the patterns reconstructed on the basis of trinucleotide frequencies in 13 eukaryotic genomes is derived: CRAAAATTTTYG. It conforms to the earlier established sequence motif. The reconstruction, thus, attests to the universality of the nucleosome DNA bendability pattern.

Impact of Alu repeats on the evolution of human p53 binding sites

BACKGROUND

The p53 tumor suppressor protein is involved in a complicated regulatory network, mediating expression of ~1000 human genes. Recent studies have shown that many p53 in vivo binding sites (BSs) reside in transposable repeats. The relationship between these BSs and functional p53 response elements (REs) remains unknown, however. We sought to understand whether the p53 REs also reside in transposable elements and particularly in the most-abundant Alu repeats.

RESULTS

We have analyzed ~160 functional p53 REs identified so far and found that 24 of them occur in repeats. More than half of these repeat-associated REs reside in Alu elements. In addition, using a position weight matrix approach, we found ~400,000 potential p53 BSs in Alu elements genome-wide. Importantly, these putative BSs are located in the same regions of Alu repeats as the functional p53 REs - namely, in the vicinity of Boxes A/A' and B of the internal RNA polymerase III promoter. Earlier nucleosome-mapping experiments showed that the Boxes A/A' and B have a different chromatin environment, which is critical for the binding of p53 to DNA. Here, we compare the Alu-residing p53 sites with the corresponding Alu consensus sequences and conclude that the p53 sites likely evolved through two different mechanisms - the sites overlapping with the Boxes A/A' were generated by CG → TG mutations; the other sites apparently pre-existed in the progenitors of several Alu subfamilies, such as AluJo and AluSq. The binding affinity of p53 to the Alu-residing sites generally correlates with the age of Alu subfamilies, so that the strongest sites are embedded in the 'relatively young' Alu repeats.

CONCLUSIONS

The primate-specific Alu repeats play an important role in shaping the p53 regulatory network in the context of chromatin. One of the selective factors responsible for the frequent occurrence of Alu repeats in introns may be related to the p53-mediated regulation of Alu transcription, which, in turn, influences expression of the host genes.

Sequence-dependent Kink-and-Slide deformations of nucleosomal DNA facilitated by histone arginines bound in the minor groove

In addition to bending and twisting deformabilities, the lateral displacements of the DNA axis (Kink-and-Slide) play an important role in DNA wrapping around the histone core (M. Y. Tolstorukov, A. V. Colasanti, D. M. McCandlish, W. K. Olson, V. B. Zhurkin, J. Mol. Biol. 371, 725-738 (2007)). Here, we show that these Kink-and-Slide deformations are likely to be stabilized by the arginine residues of histones interacting with the minor groove of DNA. The arginines are positioned asymmetrically in the minor groove, being closer to one strand. The asymmetric arginine-DNA interactions facilitate lateral displacement of base pairs across the DNA grooves, thus leading to a stepwise accumulation of the superhelical pitch of nucleosomal DNA. To understand the sequence dependence of such Kink-and-Slide deformations, we performed all-atom calculations of DNA hexamers with the YR and RY steps in the center. We found that when the unrestrained DNA deformations are allowed, the YR steps tend to bend into the major groove, and RY steps bend into the minor groove. However, when the nucleosomal Kink-and-Slide deformation is considered, the YR steps prove to be more favorable for bending into the minor groove. Overall, the Kink-and-Slide deformation energy of DNA increases in the order TA < CA < CG < GC < AC < AT. We propose a simple stereochemical model accounting for this sequence dependence. Our results agree with experimental data indicating that the TA step most frequently occurs in the minor-groove kink positions in the most stable nucleosomes. Our computations demonstrate that the Kink-and-Slide distortion is accompanied by the BI to BII transition. This fact, together with irregularities in the two-dimensional (Roll, Slide) energy contour maps, suggest that the Kink-and-Slide deformations represent a nonharmonic behavior of the duplex. This explains the difference between the two estimates of the DNA deformation energy in nucleosome - the earlier one made using knowledge-based elastic energy functions, and the current one based on all-atom calculations. Our findings are useful for refining the score functions for the prediction of nucleosome positioning. In addition, the reverse bending behavior of the YR and RY steps revealed under the Kink-and-Slide constraint is important for understanding the molecular mechanisms of binding transcription factors (such as p53) to DNA exposed on the surface of nucleosome.