Edited by: Ildikó Rácz, University Hospital Bonn, Germany
Reviewed by: Eran A. Mukamel, University of California, San Diego, United States; Ricardo Marcos Pautassi, Medical Research Institute Mercedes and Martín Ferreyra (INIMEC), Argentina
†Present address: Michael Maher, Joseph Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Campus Can Ruti, Barcelona, Spain; Meritxell Pons-Espinal, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain; Charlotte N. Hor, Centre for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Stephan Ossowski, Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
‡These authors have contributed equally to this work
$ORCID: Michael Maher,
This article was submitted to Molecular Signalling and Pathways, a section of the journal Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience
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In early development, the environment triggers mnemonic epigenomic programs resulting in memory and learning experiences to confer cognitive phenotypes into adulthood. To uncover how environmental stimulation impacts the epigenome and genome organization, we used the paradigm of environmental enrichment (EE) in young mice constantly receiving novel stimulation. We profiled epigenome and chromatin architecture in whole cortex and sorted neurons by deep-sequencing techniques. Specifically, we studied chromatin accessibility, gene and protein regulation, and 3D genome conformation, combined with predicted enhancer and chromatin interactions. We identified increased chromatin accessibility, transcription factor binding including CTCF-mediated insulation, differential occupancy of H3K36me3 and H3K79me2, and changes in transcriptional programs required for neuronal development. EE stimuli led to local genome re-organization by inducing increased contacts between chromosomes 7 and 17 (
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Exposure to environmental stimuli influences developmental programs of organisms by modulating gene regulatory networks. These programs direct early postnatal neuronal development, particularly during the “critical period” that is key to establish brain functions that are kept throughout the lifetime of an individual (
The coalescing mechanisms of gene regulation, epigenetics, and genome organization leading to learning and memory formation still remain largely unknown. Thus far, studies on how EE affects gene regulatory elements are sparse, but some findings point toward the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms, both at the level of DNA methylation and histone modifications and chromatin modifiers (
EE significantly influences learning and memory and leads to cognitive improvement, as demonstrated by multiple studies (
Experimental study design.
To analyze and intersect our multiple datasets, we devised a computational pipeline to determine activity and interplay of epigenomic marks in gene-regulatory regions, namely between enhancers predicted by the tool GEP (
EE epigenetic changes during postnatal development.
EE is non-invasive in comparison to invasive neuronal stimulation which leads to increased chromatin accessibility in gene-regulatory regions to induce gene transcription (
First, we studied EE in whole cortical tissue (
Accessible regions of chromatin regions encompass characteristic posttranslational modifications in surrounding histones (
Having determined that EE induced differential chromatin accessibility and modulation of histone modifications in postnatal cortical tissue, we next addressed potential cross-talk mechanisms. We explored the overlap across all differential epigenetically modified and accessible chromatin regions identified previously (
Next, we determined how the previously described epigenetic changes alter transcriptional (coding and non-coding) and translational landscapes upon EE. Expression analysis revealed a total of 473 differentially expressed genes (FDR < 0.05,
To recapitulate EE-induced changes by quantitative protein expression, we used iTRAQ and LCMS mass spectrometry, finding about 73 and 145 differential proteins, respectively (
To further understand the poised state of genes observed in cortical tissue and to avoid cell bias composition, we decided to investigate EE-induced influence in a cell-specific manner. We performed a cell deconvolution analysis to specify which cell types are primarily responding to EE stimulation (
We revisited our previous findings in sorted neurons by addressing chromatin accessibility and gene-body epigenetic profiling (
Our findings confirm that EE leads to increased chromatin accessibility in whole cortex, in NeuN+ neurons, and more specifically in pyramidal neurons. We further confirm that these differential accessible enhancers are active forebrain enhancers at P0 and active in pyramidal neurons both in mouse and human (
Because higher chromatin accessibility may allow increased TF binding, we ran a transcription factor binding site (TFBS) footprint analysis on whole cortex and NeuN+ populations using Centipede which screens for all putative TFBS (
Overall, we found that EE in neurons recapitulates cortical results inducing increased chromatin accessibility and CTCF binding. However in neurons, H3K79me2 increased upon EE which was not observed in the poised state of whole cortex. Noteworthy, GO terms of neuronal EE-induced changes show again genes associated with learning and memory targeting glutamatergic transmission predominantly, but also GABAergic and cholinergic transmission (
The described EE-related changes implicate that the epigenome plays an important role in 3D genome organization (
3D genome interaction changes upon EE.
While these
The multiple “omics” datasets to study the molecular basis of EE allowed us to conduct an intersection of all EE-induced changes determined in this study (
Data integration and EE implications in brain cognition.
Further analysis of our merged data showed that about 60% of transcriptomic and 84% of proteomic changes are found in our other datasets, whilst 20% of changes were determined by EE-induced
Our intersection and permutation analysis indicated that chromatin conformation might connect the epigenome with the molecular phenotypes. We now asked how different marks influence others by estimating the linear dependency of EE-induced enhancers and promoters with transcriptomic and proteomic changes by Pearson and Spearman correlations (
The cognitive and behavioral effects of EE could be a beneficial strategy for cognitive human disorders (
We have characterized the regulatory response to EE by using omics both in whole cortex tissue and in two neuronal cell populations and provide a valuable resource for other scientists. We demonstrate that EE induces coordinated changes of gene-regulatory networks that involve epigenetics and genome organization to adapt to constant cognitive stimulation and social interaction. EE induced increased enhancer and promoter chromatin accessibility in neurons, corroborating previous studies showing increased open chromatin upon invasive neuronal stimulation (
Our results also revealed, that gene body marks show differential activity in distal active enhancers upon EE, pointing to a potential role for these marks at transcriptionally active enhancers (
Despite the caveat of cell heterogeneity potentially skewing observations in whole tissue-related experiments, particularly involving epigenetic gene body marks, it has been shown that these marks can be anticorrelated with expressed genes during aging (
Furthermore, by applying Hi-C to neurons, we elucidated for the first time
Our results indicate that environmental cues in postnatal development, particularly stimulation provided by EE, modulates epigenomic and 3D genome landscapes in a coordinated manner relevant for cognition.
All experimental procedures were approved by the local ethical committee (Procedure Code: ISA-11-1358). Wild type mice (C57BL/6J) and Tg(Thy1-YFP) [strain B6.Cg-Tg(Thy1-YFPH)2Jrs/J No. 003782; The Jackson Laboratories] were kept and bred according to local (Catalan law 5/1995 and Decrees 214/97, 32/2007) and European regulations (EU directives 86/609 and 2001-486).
After weaning (21 days of age), mice were randomly reared under either non-enriched (NE) or enriched (EE) conditions for 30 days. In NE conditions, animals were reared in conventional Plexiglas cages (20 × 12 × 12 cm height) in groups of two to three animals. The EE group was reared in spacious (55 × 80 × 50 cm height) Plexiglas cages with toys, small houses, tunnels, and platforms. The arrangement was changed every 3 days to maintain the novelty of the environment. To stimulate social interactions, six to eight mice were housed in each EE cage. All groups of animals were maintained under the same 12 h (8:00 to 20:00) light-dark cycle in controlled environmental conditions of humidity (60%) and temperature (22°C), with free access to food and water. The experiments were conducted using only females, since male mice showed hierarchical behavior similar to that observed previously that may affect the outcome of EE (
Cortical data analysis derived from the same samples and EE protocol that was used by
DNA was extracted using Phenol:chroloform:iso-amyl alcohol (25:24:1) according to manufacturer guidelines (Sigma 77617-500ml). RNA was extracted using Qiazol total RNA (Qiagen Cat No:79306) kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The RNA was quantified by Qubit® 2.0 Fluorometer (Life Technologies) and the quality was assessed using a Nanodrop 2000c (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and a 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, CA, United States).
To obtain fresh nuclei, ground frozen tissue was resuspended in tissue lysis buffer (1x PBS containing 0.1% Triton X-100, 1x Complete Protease inhibitor cocktail tablette (cOMPLETE mini EDTA-free, Roche Cat No. 11836170001) and 1 mg/ml AEBSF (Pefabloc, Roche Cat No. 11585916001) and dissociated by 60–90 strokes in a glass douncer (7 ml tissue grinder Tenbroek, Wheaton Cat No. 357424). Nuclei were counted using a hemacytometer and constantly checked under a microscope (Leica DM-IL).
Two different procedure were performed: (1) Sorting total neurons using NeuN (Rbfox3) marker and (2) Sorting pyramidal neurons in Tg(Thy1-YFP) mice. Briefly, after the nucleus preparation, nuclei were resuspended in 1 ml of PBS-PI 1X [1X-PBS, 1x Complete Protease inhibitor cocktail (cOMPLETE mini EDTA-free, Roche Cat No.
WGBS was performed by CNAG Genome Facility on two independent sets of biological replicates. Briefly, genomic DNA (1–2 μg) was spiked with unmethylated λ DNA (5 ng of λ DNA per microgram of genomic DNA; Promega). DNA was sheared by sonication to 50–500 bp in size using a Covaris E220 sonicator, and fragments of 150–300 bp were selected using AMPure XP beads (Agencourt Bioscience). Genomic DNA libraries were constructed using the Illumina TruSeq Sample Preparation kit following Illumina’s standard protocol. DNA was treated with sodium bisulfite after adaptor ligation, using the EpiTexy Bisulfite kit (Qiagen), following the manufacturer’s instructions for formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Two rounds of bisulfite conversion were performed to ensure a conversion rate of >99%. Enrichment for adaptor-ligated DNA was carried out through seven PCR cycles using PfuTurboCx Hot-Start DNA polymerase (Stratagene). Library quality was monitored using the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, and the concentration was determined by quantitative PCR with the library quantification kit from Kapa Biosystems. Paired-end DNA sequencing (2 × 100 bp) was then performed using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform.
Open chromatin studies were performed by ATAC-seq and SONO-seq procedures. Briefly, ATAC-seq was performed with minor modifications from
Nuclei obtained in section “Nucleus Isolation” were cross- linked with 0.5% formaldehyde (Sigma F8775-25ml) for 5 min at room temperature (RT). Residual formaldehyde was quenched by addition of glycine (MAGnifyTM Glycine P/N 100006373) to a final concentration of 0.125 M and incubation for 5 min at RT. Nuclei were pelleted by centrifugation at 500 g during 10 min at 4°C and resuspended in 300 μl lysis buffer (MAGnifyTM Chromatin Immunoprecipitation System, Cat no. 49-2024). Chromatin was fragmented by sonication in a Covaris S2 [Duty Cycle: 20, Intensity: 8, Cycles per Burst:200, for 15 min (histone marks), for 25 min (FACS-sorted nuclei)] to a median size of 200 bp, aliquoted and stored at −80°C until further use. For non-histonic proteins such CTCF, no nuclei preparation was performed. Homogenized tissue was crosslinked with 0.5% formaldehyde for 10 min at RT, quenched and fragmented as above (Duty Cycle: 5, Intensity: 2, Cycles per Burst: 200, Time: 25 min). Chromatin immunoprecipitation was performed using antibodies against histone modifications (H3K27ac, H3K4me3, H3K4me1, H3K79me2, H3K36me3, H3K27me3, H3K9me2, and CTCF) with the MAGnifyTM Chromatin Immunoprecipitation System (Invitrogen Cat no. 49-2024), according to manufacturer’s instructions. For whole cortex and NeuN histonic ChIP-seq a total amount of 50 k nuclei was used per ChIP (∼330 ng), 700 k nuclei (∼4 μg) for non-histonic ChIP-seq. Recovered ChIP DNA was used to construct sequencing libraries, using the NEBNext Ultra (New England Cat. No. E7370L) kit according to the manufacturer’s protocol, and sequenced on a HiSeq2000 sequencer (Illumina). The quality of the ChIP-seq was determined by qPCR, using positive and negative primers to detect the regions where the histones should be placed in the genome (
Transcriptome study involved both poly-A RNA, directional RNA and small RNA libraries. Poly-A RNA sequencing libraries were prepared from total RNA using the TruSeqTM RNA sample preparation kit (Illumina Inc., Cat. No. RS-122-2001) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Directional RNA libraries were prepared using the ScriptSeqTM Complete Gold Kit (Human/Mouse/Rat) (Epicentre Biotechnologies), according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Briefly, 3 μg of total RNA were depleted of both cytoplasmic and mitochondrial rRNAs using the Ribo-ZeroTM Gold rRNA Removal Reagents. The total rRNA depletion of the samples was confirmed on a 2100 Bioanalyzer RNA 6000 Pico Chip. For the library preparation we used 50 ng of Ribo-Zero-treated RNA as starting material for the ScriptSeqTM v2 RNA-Seq Library Preparation Kit, followed by amplification by 12 cycles of PCR, using the FailSafeTM PCR Enzyme Mix (Epicentre Biotechnologies) before purification with AMPure XP beads (Agencourt, Beckman Coulter Cat. No. A63881). Both the directional mRNA and the Poly-A RNA libraries were sequenced in paired end mode with read length 2 × 101 bp on a HiSeq2000 (Illumina, Inc.) following the manufacturer’s protocol. After computational analysis, we validated 21 differential expressed genes in a new batch of biological replicates following the method of
Samples were minced with RIPA-M buffer (1% NP40, 1% Sodium deoxycholate, 0.15 M NaCl, 0.001 M EDTA, 0.05 TrisHCl pH = 7.5, 1X cOMPLETE Mini EDTA free, 0.01 M NaF, 0.01 M Sodium pyrophosphate, 0.005 M β-glycerolphophate), sonicated with a Diagenode Bioruptor (cycles of 0.5 min ON 0.5 min OFF, medium intensity during 5 min). Samples were centrifuged during 10 min 16,000 rpm at 4°C and precipitated with acetone at -20°C for 1 hour. Samples were pelleted by centrifugation during 10 min 16,000 rpm at 4°C, dried and resuspended in Urea/200 mM ABC, sonicated again during 10 min (cycles of 0.5 min ON 0.5 min OFF, medium intensity) and quantified prior to mass spectrophotometry injection following isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) or Liquid Chromatography/Mass-Spectophotometry (LC/MS).
Cerebral cortex samples from individual C57BL/6J mice (2 bio-replicates per EE and CTL conditions) were sorted using NeuN+ (Rbfox3+) as described above. After sorting, approximately 1 million of nuclei were used for in situ HiC following previous specifications (
Active enhancers for EE and CTL cortex were predicted and annotated using a machine learning approach called Generalized Enhancer Predictor (GEP)
Chromatin interactions were predicted from chromatin modifications using Epitensor with minor modifications to adapt the script to the mouse genome (
Methylated CpGs were called from the raw reads using Bismark (
ATAC-seq libraries were aligned to mm10 using bwa-mem with predefined parameters (
Footprinting analysis was done using the Centipede software using the core transcription factor binding motifs from the Jaspar database (version 2016-03-02) (
Samples were mapped to mouse mm10 (peak-independent) using Bowtie (
mRNA reads were aligned to mm10 using STAR with standard parameters (
Regarding the lncRNA analysis, total RNA reads were aligned to mm10 using Subjunc splice-aware aligner with default settings (
Small RNA reads with homo-polymer and low PHRED scores were removed using FASTQ-Toolkit and a custom script. SeqBuster was used to remove adapters and align using miraligner.jar with mouse miRbase v18 annotation (
The analysis of iTRAQ data consisted in sorting the discrepancy (
Discrepant results then will be considered as values far from
For quality check, sequencing reads were mapped to the mouse reference genome assembly (mm10), artifacts were filtered, and library was ICED normalized using the Hi-C-Pro (
Required EE and CTL gtrack file to run chrom3D (
We used Metascape to intersect the totality of the data. Some of the results were clumped as the maximum amount of sets allowed is 30 (
Linear dependency test was performed by using Pearson and Spearman correlations to test how enhancer and promoter activity of different marks influence differential changes observed in the transcriptome and proteome. Briefly, normalized counts by RPKM mapping into enhancers and promoters were first averaged by target gene name they interact with using EpiTensor (
In order to test the association of differential regions induced by EE with
Datasets are currently accessible in the SRA repository:
The animal study was reviewed and approved by Comité Ético de Experimentación Animal del PRBB (Procedure Code: ISA-11-1358).
SE-G performed most of the experimental procedures (sorted ATAC-seq samples, all ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and miRNA validations,
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Special thanks to the “Centre for Genomic Regulation Core Facilities”: Irene González Navarrete, María Angustias Aguilar Morón, Anna Menoyo Vilalta, Núria Andreu Somavilla, and Jochen Hecht from the Genomics Facility and Òscar Fornas, Eva Julià Arteaga, Erika Ramírez Bautista, and Alexandre Bote Tronchoni from the CRG FAC-sorting Unit. Also, we would like to thank to Domenica Marchese for helping with microRNA validation and Jekaterina Kokatjuhha and Mattia Bosio for their computational help support.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: