Rapid reversible changes in compartments and local chromatin organization revealed by hyperosmotic shock
- Ramon Amat1,2,6,
- René Böttcher1,2,6,
- François Le Dily3,6,
- Enrique Vidal3,
- Javier Quilez3,
- Yasmina Cuartero3,4,
- Miguel Beato3,4,5,
- Eulàlia de Nadal1,2 and
- Francesc Posas1,2
- 1Cell Signaling Research Group, Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, E-08003 Barcelona, Spain;
- 2Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08028 Barcelona, Spain;
- 3Gene Regulation, Stem Cells and Cancer Program, Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), E-08003 Barcelona, Spain;
- 4CNAG-CRG, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), E-08003 Barcelona, Spain;
- 5Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
-
↵6 These authors are joint first authors and contributed equally to this work.
Abstract
Nuclear architecture is decisive for the assembly of transcriptional responses. However, how chromosome organization is dynamically modulated to permit rapid and transient transcriptional changes in response to environmental challenges remains unclear. Here we show that hyperosmotic stress disrupts different levels of chromosome organization, ranging from A/B compartment changes to reduction in the number and insulation of topologically associating domains (TADs). Concomitantly, transcription is greatly affected, TAD borders weaken, and RNA Polymerase II runs off from hundreds of transcription end sites. Stress alters the binding profiles of architectural proteins, which explains the disappearance of local chromatin organization. These processes are dynamic, and cells rapidly reconstitute their default chromatin conformation after stress removal, uncovering an intrinsic organization. Transcription is not required for local chromatin reorganization, while compartment recovery is partially transcription-dependent. Thus, nuclear organization in mammalian cells can be rapidly modulated by environmental changes in a reversible manner.
Footnotes
-
[Supplemental material is available for this article.]
-
Article published online before print. Article, supplemental material, and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.238527.118.
-
Freely available online through the Genome Research Open Access option.
- Received April 15, 2018.
- Accepted November 22, 2018.
This article, published in Genome Research, is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
