Determining the effect of DNA methylation on chromatin structure and function in higher organisms is challenging due to the extreme complexity of epigenetic regulation. We studied a simpler model system, budding yeast, that lacks DNA methylation machinery making it a perfect model system to study the intrinsic role of DNA methylation in chromatin structure and function. We expressed the murine DNA methyltransferases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and analyzed the correlation between DNA methylation, nucleosome positioning, gene expression and 3D genome organization. Despite lacking the machinery for positioning and reading methylation marks, induced DNA methylation follows a conserved pattern with low methylation levels at the 5’ end of the gene increasing gradually toward the 3’ end, with concentration of methylated DNA in linkers and nucleosome free regions, and with actively expressed genes showing low and high levels of methylation at transcription start and terminating sites respectively, mimicking the patterns seen in mammals. We also see that DNA methylation increases chromatin condensation in peri-centromeric regions, decreases overall DNA flexibility, and favors the heterochromatin state. Taken together, these results demonstrate that methylation intrinsically modulates chromatin structure and function even in the absence of cellular machinery evolved to recognize and process the methylation signal.

We present a comprehensive, experimental and theoretical study of the impact of 5-hydroxymethylation of DNA cytosine. Using molecular dynamics, biophysical experiments and NMR spectroscopy, we found that Ten-Eleven translocation (TET) dioxygenases generate an epigenetic variant with structural and physical properties similar to those of 5-methylcytosine. Experiments and simulations demonstrate that 5-methylcytosine (mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC) generally lead to stiffer DNA than normal cytosine, with poorer circularization efficiencies and lower ability to form nucleosomes. In particular, we can rule out the hypothesis that hydroxymethylation reverts to unmodified cytosine physical properties, as hmC is even more rigid than mC. Thus, we do not expect dramatic changes in the chromatin structure induced by differences in physical properties between d(mCpG) and d(hmCpG). Conversely, our simulations suggest that methylated-DNA binding domains (MBDs), associated with repression activities, are sensitive to the substitution d(mCpG) ➔ d(hmCpG), while MBD3 which has a dual activation/repression activity is not sensitive to the d(mCpG) d(hmCpG) change. Overall, while gene activity changes due to cytosine methylation are the result of the combination of stiffness-related chromatin reorganization and MBD binding, those associated to 5-hydroxylation of methylcytosine could be explained by a change in the balance of repression/activation pathways related to differential MBD binding.

Pre-mRNA splicing is catalyzed by the spliceosome, and its control is essential for correct gene expression. While splicing repressors typically interfere with transcript recognition by spliceosomal components, the yeast protein L30 blocks spliceosomal rearrangements required for the engagement of U2 snRNP (small ribonucleoprotein particle) to its own transcript RPL30. Using a mutation in the RPL30 binding site that disrupts this repression, we have taken a genetic approach to reveal that regulation of splicing is restored in this mutant by deletion of the cap-binding complex (CBC) component Cbp80. Indeed, our data indicate that Cbp80 plays distinct roles in the recognition of the intron by U1 and U2 snRNP. It promotes the initial 59 splice site recognition by U1 and, independently, facilitates U2 recruitment, depending on sequences located in the vicinity of the 59 splice site. These results reveal a novel function for CBC in splicing and imply that these molecular events can be the target of a splicing regulator.

Abstract The extreme complexity of epigenetic regulation in higher organisms makes the determination of the intrinsic effect of DNA methylation in chromatin structure and function challenging. We investigated the role of DNA methylation in a simpler model system, budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), an organism in which methylation-related machinery is normally absent thus making it a perfect model system to study the intrinsic role of methylation in chromatin structure and function. With this aim, we expressed the murine DNA Methyl Transferases in S. cerevisiae and analyzed the correlation between DNA methylation, nucleosome positioning, gene expression and 3D genome organization. We showed that despite the lack of machinery for positioning and reading of methylation marks, the methylation pattern follows a conserved pattern, the level of DNA methylation being very low at the 5’ end of the gene, and then increasing gradually toward the 3’ end, mimicking mammalian behavior. DNA methylation and gene expression correlate as DNA methylation is lower at the TSS and higher at the TTS in highly expressed genes compared to lowly expressed ones, mimicking again mammalian behavior. We found that methylated DNA is unlikely to be wrapped around nucleosomes, but is concentrated in linkers and nucleosome free regions. DNA methylation increases chromatin condensation in the peri-centromeric region, decreases overall DNA flexibility and favors the heterochromatin state. Taken together, these results demonstrate that methylation intrinsically modulates chromatin structure and function even in the absence of cellular machinery evolved to recognize and process the methylation signal.

We present a comprehensive, experimental and theoretical study of the impact of 5-hydroxymethylation of DNA cytosine. Using molecular dynamics, biophysical experiments and NMR spectroscopy, we found that Ten-Eleven translocation (TET) dioxygenases generate an epigenetic variant with structural and physical properties not too different to those of 5-methylcytosine. Experiments and simulations demonstrate that 5-methyl-cytosine (mC) and 5-hydroxymethyl-cytosine (hmC) generally lead to more rigid duplexes with poorer circularization efficiencies and lower ability to form nucleosomes. In particular, we can rule out the hypothesis that hydroxymethylation reverts to unmodified cytosine physical properties, as hmC is even more rigid than mC. Thus, we do not expect dramatic changes in the chromatin structure induced by differences in physical properties between d(mCpG) and d(hmCpG). On the contrary, our simulations suggest that methylated-DNA binding domains (MBD), associated with repression activities, are very sensitive to the substitution d(mCpG)→ d(hmCpG), while MBD3 which has a dual activation/repression activity is not sensitive to the d(mCpG) → d(hmCpG) change. Overall, while changes in gene activity due to cytosine methylation are the result of the combination of stiffness-related chromatin reorganization and MBD binding, those associated to 5-hydroxylation of methylcytosine could be explained by a change in the balance of repression/activation pathways related to differential MBD binding.