Open AccessHistone H3K27 methylation is required for NHEJ and genome stability by modulating the dynamics of FANCD2 on chromatin
Author(s) -
Ye Zhang,
Jian-Feng Chang,
Jin Sun,
Lu Chen,
Xiaomei Yang,
Herman Tang,
Yuanya Jing,
Xuan Kang,
He Zhang,
Junyu Wu,
Huimin Wei,
Da-Liang Wang,
Rong-Gang Xu,
Ruibao Zhu,
Ying Shen,
Shiyang Zeng,
Chen Wang,
Kui-nan Liu,
Yong Zhang,
Zhiyong Mao,
Cizhong Jiang,
Fang-Lin Sun
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of cell science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.384
H-Index - 278
eISSN - 1477-9137
pISSN - 0021-9533
DOI - 10.1242/jcs.215525
Subject(s) - biology , chromatin , histone , dna methylation , genetics , epigenetics , ezh2 , epigenomics , microbiology and biotechnology , computational biology , dna , gene , gene expression
Dysregulation of homeostatic balance in di- and tri-methyl H3K27 levels or that caused by mis-sense mutations of histone H3 (H3K27M) was reported to be associated with various types of cancers. In this study, we found that reduction in H3K27me2/3 caused by H3.1K27M, a mutation of H3 variants found in DIPG patients, dramatically attenuated the presence of 53BP1 foci and NHEJ repair capability in HDF cells. H3.1K27M cells showed increased rates of genomic insertions/deletions (In/Dels) and copy number variations (CNVs), as well as augmented p53-dependent apoptotic cells. We further showed that both hypo-H3K27me2/3 and H3.1K27M interacted with FANCD2, a central player to orchestrate DNA repair pathway choice. H3.1K27M triggered an accumulation of FANCD2 on chromatin, supporting the interaction between H3.1K27M and FANCD2. Most interestingly, knock-down of FANCD2 in H3.1K27M cells recovered the number of 53BP1 foci, NHEJ efficiency and apoptosis rate. Although these findings in HDF cells may differ from the case of endogenous H3.1K27M mutant regulation in the specific tumor context of DIPG, our results suggest a new model by which H3K27me2/3 facilitates NHEJ and the maintenance of genome stability.