Combining NGN2 Programming with Developmental Patterning Generates Human Excitatory Neurons with NMDAR-Mediated Synaptic Transmission.

Transcription factor programming of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) has emerged as an approach to generate human neurons for disease modeling. However, programming schemes produce a variety of cell types, and those neurons that are made often retain an immature phenotype, which limits their utility in modeling neuronal processes, including synaptic transmission. We report that combining NGN2 programming with SMAD and WNT inhibition generates human patterned induced neurons (hpiNs). Single-cell analyses showed that hpiN cultures contained cells along a developmental continuum, ranging from poorly differentiated neuronal progenitors to well-differentiated, excitatory glutamatergic neurons. The most differentiated neurons could be identified using a CAMK2A::GFP reporter gene and exhibited greater functionality, including NMDAR-mediated synaptic transmission. We conclude that utilizing single-cell and reporter gene approaches for selecting successfully programmed cells for study will greatly enhance the utility of hpiNs and other programmed neuronal populations in the modeling of nervous system disorders.

Alzheimer's disease: early alterations in brain DNA methylation at ANK1, BIN1, RHBDF2 and other loci.

We used a collection of 708 prospectively collected autopsied brains to assess the methylation state of the brain's DNA in relation to Alzheimer's disease (AD). We found that the level of methylation at 71 of the 415,848 interrogated CpGs was significantly associated with the burden of AD pathology, including CpGs in the ABCA7 and BIN1 regions, which harbor known AD susceptibility variants. We validated 11 of the differentially methylated regions in an independent set of 117 subjects. Furthermore, we functionally validated these CpG associations and identified the nearby genes whose RNA expression was altered in AD: ANK1, CDH23, DIP2A, RHBDF2, RPL13, SERPINF1 and SERPINF2. Our analyses suggest that these DNA methylation changes may have a role in the onset of AD given that we observed them in presymptomatic subjects and that six of the validated genes connect to a known AD susceptibility gene network.

Lung stem cell self-renewal relies on BMI1-dependent control of expression at imprinted loci.

BMI1 is required for the self-renewal of stem cells in many tissues including the lung epithelial stem cells, Bronchioalveolar Stem Cells (BASCs). Imprinted genes, which exhibit expression from only the maternally or paternally inherited allele, are known to regulate developmental processes, but what their role is in adult cells remains a fundamental question. Many imprinted genes were derepressed in Bmi1 knockout mice, and knockdown of Cdkn1c (p57) and other imprinted genes partially rescued the self-renewal defect of Bmi1 mutant lung cells. Expression of p57 and other imprinted genes was required for lung cell self-renewal in culture and correlated with repair of lung epithelial cell injury in vivo. Our data suggest that BMI1-dependent regulation of expressed alleles at imprinted loci, distinct from imprinting per se, is required for control of lung stem cells. We anticipate that the regulation and function of imprinted genes is crucial for self-renewal in diverse adult tissue-specific stem cells.

G1 arrest and differentiation can occur independently of Rb family function.

The ability of progenitor cells to exit the cell cycle is essential for proper embryonic development and homeostasis, but the mechanisms governing cell cycle exit are still not fully understood. Here, we tested the requirement for the retinoblastoma (Rb) protein and its family members p107 and p130 in G0/G1 arrest and differentiation in mammalian cells. We found that Rb family triple knockout (TKO) mouse embryos survive until days 9-11 of gestation. Strikingly, some TKO cells, including in epithelial and neural lineages, are able to exit the cell cycle in G0/G1 and differentiate in teratomas and in culture. This ability of TKO cells to arrest in G0/G1 is associated with the repression of key E2F target genes. Thus, G1 arrest is not always dependent on Rb family members, which illustrates the robustness of cell cycle regulatory networks during differentiation and allows for the identification of candidate pathways to inhibit the expansion of cancer cells with mutations in the Rb pathway.

Unbiased reconstruction of a mammalian transcriptional network mediating pathogen responses.

Models of mammalian regulatory networks controlling gene expression have been inferred from genomic data but have largely not been validated. We present an unbiased strategy to systematically perturb candidate regulators and monitor cellular transcriptional responses. We applied this approach to derive regulatory networks that control the transcriptional response of mouse primary dendritic cells to pathogens. Our approach revealed the regulatory functions of 125 transcription factors, chromatin modifiers, and RNA binding proteins, which enabled the construction of a network model consisting of 24 core regulators and 76 fine-tuners that help to explain how pathogen-sensing pathways achieve specificity. This study establishes a broadly applicable, comprehensive, and unbiased approach to reveal the wiring and functions of a regulatory network controlling a major transcriptional response in primary mammalian cells.

Targeted deletion reveals essential and overlapping functions of the miR-17 through 92 family of miRNA clusters.

miR-17 approximately 92, miR-106b approximately 25, and miR-106a approximately 363 belong to a family of highly conserved miRNA clusters. Amplification and overexpression of miR-1792 is observed in human cancers, and its oncogenic properties have been confirmed in a mouse model of B cell lymphoma. Here we show that mice deficient for miR-17 approximately 92 die shortly after birth with lung hypoplasia and a ventricular septal defect. The miR-17 approximately 92 cluster is also essential for B cell development. Absence of miR-17 approximately 92 leads to increased levels of the proapoptotic protein Bim and inhibits B cell development at the pro-B to pre-B transition. Furthermore, while ablation of miR-106b approximately 25 or miR-106a approximately 363 has no obvious phenotypic consequences, compound mutant embryos lacking both miR-106b approximately 25 and miR-17 approximately 92 die at midgestation. These results provide key insights into the physiologic functions of this family of microRNAs and suggest a link between the oncogenic properties of miR-17 approximately 92 and its functions during B lymphopoiesis and lung development.

Dnmt3b promotes tumorigenesis in vivo by gene-specific de novo methylation and transcriptional silencing.

Increased methylation of CpG islands and silencing of affected target genes is frequently found in human cancer; however, in vivo the question of causality has only been addressed by loss-of-function studies. To directly evaluate the role and mechanism of de novo methylation in tumor development, we overexpressed the de novo DNA methyltransferases Dnmt3a1 and Dnmt3b1 in Apc Min/+ mice. We found that Dnmt3b1 enhanced the number of colon tumors in Apc Min/+ mice approximately twofold and increased the average size of colonic microadenomas, whereas Dnmt3a1 had no effect. The overexpression of Dnmt3b1 caused loss of imprinting and increased expression of Igf2 as well as methylation and transcriptional silencing of the tumor suppressor genes Sfrp2, Sfrp4, and Sfrp5. Importantly, we found that Dnmt3b1 but not Dnmt3a1 efficiently methylates the same set of genes in tumors and in nontumor tissues, demonstrating that de novo methyltransferases can initiate methylation and silencing of specific genes in phenotypically normal cells. This suggests that DNA methylation patterns in cancer are the result of specific targeting of at least some tumor suppressor genes rather than of random, stochastic methylation followed by clonal selection due to a proliferative advantage caused by tumor suppressor gene silencing.

Reprogramming efficiency following somatic cell nuclear transfer is influenced by the differentiation and methylation state of the donor nucleus.

Reprogramming of a differentiated cell nucleus by somatic cell nuclear transplantation is an inefficient process. Following nuclear transfer, the donor nucleus often fails to express early embryonic genes and establish a normal embryonic pattern of chromatin modifications. These defects correlate with the low number of cloned embryos able to produce embryonic stem cells or develop into adult animals. Here, we show that the differentiation and methylation state of the donor cell influence the efficiency of genomic reprogramming. First, neural stem cells, when used as donors for nuclear transplantation, produce embryonic stem cells at a higher efficiency than blastocysts derived from terminally differentiated neuronal donor cells, demonstrating a correlation between the state of differentiation and cloning efficiency. Second, using a hypomorphic allele of DNA methyltransferase-1, we found that global hypomethylation of a differentiated cell genome improved cloning efficiency. Our results provide functional evidence that the differentiation and epigenetic state of the donor nucleus influences reprogramming efficiency.

A bivalent chromatin structure marks key developmental genes in embryonic stem cells.

The most highly conserved noncoding elements (HCNEs) in mammalian genomes cluster within regions enriched for genes encoding developmentally important transcription factors (TFs). This suggests that HCNE-rich regions may contain key regulatory controls involved in development. We explored this by examining histone methylation in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells across 56 large HCNE-rich loci. We identified a specific modification pattern, termed "bivalent domains," consisting of large regions of H3 lysine 27 methylation harboring smaller regions of H3 lysine 4 methylation. Bivalent domains tend to coincide with TF genes expressed at low levels. We propose that bivalent domains silence developmental genes in ES cells while keeping them poised for activation. We also found striking correspondences between genome sequence and histone methylation in ES cells, which become notably weaker in differentiated cells. These results highlight the importance of DNA sequence in defining the initial epigenetic landscape and suggest a novel chromatin-based mechanism for maintaining pluripotency.

Opposing effects of DNA hypomethylation on intestinal and liver carcinogenesis.

Genome-wide DNA hypomethylation and concomitant promoter-specific tumor suppressor gene hypermethylation are among the most common molecular alterations in human neoplasia. Consistent with the notion that both promoter hypermethylation and genome-wide hypomethylation are functionally important in tumorigenesis, genetic and/or pharmacologic reduction of DNA methylation levels results in suppression or promotion of tumor incidence, respectively, depending on the tumor cell type. For instance, DNA hypomethylation promotes tumors that rely predominantly on loss of heterozygosity (LOH) or chromosomal instability mechanisms, whereas loss of DNA methylation suppresses tumors that rely on epigenetic silencing. Mutational and epigenetic silencing events in Wnt pathway genes have been identified in human colon tumors. We used Apc(Min/+) mice to investigate the effect of hypomethylation on intestinal and liver tumor formation. Intestinal carcinogenesis in Apc(Min/+) mice occurs in two stages, with the formation of microadenomas leading to the development of macroscopic polyps. Using Dnmt1 hypomorphic alleles to reduce genomic methylation, we observed elevated incidence of microadenomas that were associated with LOH at Apc. In contrast, the incidence and growth of macroscopic intestinal tumors in the same animals was strongly suppressed. In contrast to the overall inhibition of intestinal tumorigenesis in hypomethylated Apc(Min/+) mice, hypomethylation caused development of multifocal liver tumors accompanied by Apc LOH. These findings support the notion of a dual role for DNA hypomethylation in suppressing later stages of intestinal tumorigenesis, but promoting early lesions in the colon and liver through an LOH mechanism.