Measuring S-Phase Duration from Asynchronous Cells Using Dual EdU-BrdU Pulse-Chase Labeling Flow Cytometry.

Eukaryotes duplicate their chromosomes during the cell cycle S phase using thousands of initiation sites, tunable fork speed and megabase-long spatio-temporal replication programs. The duration of S phase is fairly constant within a given cell type, but remarkably plastic during development, cell differentiation or various stresses. Characterizing the dynamics of S phase is important as replication defects are associated with genome instability, cancer and ageing. Methods to measure S-phase duration are so far indirect, and rely on mathematical modelling or require cell synchronization. We describe here a simple and robust method to measure S-phase duration in cell cultures using a dual EdU-BrdU pulse-labeling regimen with incremental thymidine chases, and quantification by flow cytometry of cells entering and exiting S phase. Importantly, the method requires neither cell synchronization nor genome engineering, thus avoiding possible artifacts. It measures the duration of unperturbed S phases, but also the effect of drugs or mutations on it. We show that this method can be used for both adherent and suspension cells, cell lines and primary cells of different types from human, mouse and Drosophila. Interestingly, the method revealed that several commonly-used cancer cell lines have a longer S phase compared to untransformed cells.

Inefficient differentiation response to cell cycle stress leads to genomic instability and malignant progression of squamous carcinoma cells.

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) or epidermoid cancer is a frequent and aggressive malignancy. However in apparent paradox it retains the squamous differentiation phenotype except for very dysplastic lesions. We have shown that cell cycle stress in normal epidermal keratinocytes triggers a squamous differentiation response involving irreversible mitosis block and polyploidisation. Here we show that cutaneous SCC cells conserve a partial squamous DNA damage-induced differentiation response that allows them to overcome the cell division block. The capacity to divide in spite of drug-induced mitotic stress and DNA damage made well-differentiated SCC cells more genomically instable and more malignant in vivo. Consistently, in a series of human biopsies, non-metastatic SCCs displayed a higher degree of chromosomal alterations and higher expression of the S phase regulator Cyclin E and the DNA damage signal γH2AX than the less aggressive, non-squamous, basal cell carcinomas. However, metastatic SCCs lost the γH2AX signal and Cyclin E, or accumulated cytoplasmic Cyclin E. Conversely, inhibition of endogenous Cyclin E in well-differentiated SCC cells interfered with the squamous phenotype. The results suggest a dual role of cell cycle stress-induced differentiation in squamous cancer: the resulting mitotic blocks would impose, when irreversible, a proliferative barrier, when reversible, a source of genomic instability, thus contributing to malignancy.

Analyzing the dynamics of DNA replication in Mammalian cells using DNA combing.

How cells duplicate their chromosomes is a key determinant of cell identity and genome stability. DNA replication can initiate from more than 100,000 sites distributed along mammalian chromosomes, yet a given cell uses only a subset of these origins due to inefficient origin activation and regulation by developmental or environmental cues. An impractical consequence of cell-to-cell variations in origin firing is that population-based techniques do not accurately describe how chromosomes are replicated in single cells. DNA combing is a biophysical DNA fiber stretching method which permits visualization of ongoing DNA synthesis along Mb-sized single-DNA molecules purified from cells that were previously pulse-labeled with thymidine analogues. This allows quantitative measurements of several salient features of chromosome replication dynamics, such as fork velocity, fork asymmetry, inter-origin distances, and global instant fork density. In this chapter we describe how to obtain this information from asynchronous cultures of mammalian cells.

Decreased MCM2-6 in Drosophila S2 cells does not generate significant DNA damage or cause a marked increase in sensitivity to replication interference.

A reduction in the level of some MCM proteins in human cancer cells (MCM5 in U20S cells or MCM3 in Hela cells) causes a rapid increase in the level of DNA damage under normal conditions of cell proliferation and a loss of viability when the cells are subjected to replication interference. Here we show that Drosophila S2 cells do not appear to show the same degree of sensitivity to MCM2-6 reduction. Under normal cell growth conditions a reduction of >95% in the levels of MCM3, 5, and 6 causes no significant short term alteration in the parameters of DNA replication or increase in DNA damage. MCM depleted cells challenged with HU do show a decrease in the density of replication forks compared to cells with normal levels of MCM proteins, but this produces no consistent change in the levels of DNA damage observed. In contrast a comparable reduction of MCM7 levels has marked effects on viability, replication parameters and DNA damage in the absence of HU treatment.

Cohesin organizes chromatin loops at DNA replication factories.

Genomic DNA is packed in chromatin fibers organized in higher-order structures within the interphase nucleus. One level of organization involves the formation of chromatin loops that may provide a favorable environment to processes such as DNA replication, transcription, and repair. However, little is known about the mechanistic basis of this structuration. Here we demonstrate that cohesin participates in the spatial organization of DNA replication factories in human cells. Cohesin is enriched at replication origins and interacts with prereplication complex proteins. Down-regulation of cohesin slows down S-phase progression by limiting the number of active origins and increasing the length of chromatin loops that correspond with replicon units. These results give a new dimension to the role of cohesin in the architectural organization of interphase chromatin, by showing its participation in DNA replication.

A mitosis block links active cell cycle with human epidermal differentiation and results in endoreplication.

How human self-renewal tissues co-ordinate proliferation with differentiation is unclear. Human epidermis undergoes continuous cell growth and differentiation and is permanently exposed to mutagenic hazard. Keratinocytes are thought to arrest cell growth and cell cycle prior to terminal differentiation. However, a growing body of evidence does not satisfy this model. For instance, it does not explain how skin maintains tissue structure in hyperproliferative benign lesions. We have developed and applied novel cell cycle techniques to human skin in situ and determined the dynamics of key cell cycle regulators of DNA replication or mitosis, such as cyclins E, A and B, or members of the anaphase promoting complex pathway: cdc14A, Ndc80/Hec1 and Aurora kinase B. The results show that actively cycling keratinocytes initiate terminal differentiation, arrest in mitosis, continue DNA replication in a special G2/M state, and become polyploid by mitotic slippage. They unambiguously demonstrate that cell cycle progression coexists with terminal differentiation, thus explaining how differentiating cells increase in size. Epidermal differentiating cells arrest in mitosis and a genotoxic-induced mitosis block rapidly pushes epidermal basal cells into differentiation and polyploidy. These observations unravel a novel mitosis-differentiation link that provides new insight into skin homeostasis and cancer. It might constitute a self-defence mechanism against oncogenic alterations such as Myc deregulation.

A novel mouse c-fos intronic promoter that responds to CREB and AP-1 is developmentally regulated in vivo.

BACKGROUND: The c-fos proto-oncogene is an archetype for rapid and integrative transcriptional activation. Innumerable studies have focused on the canonical promoter, located upstream from the transcriptional start site. However, several regulatory sequences have been found in the first intron. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we describe an extremely conserved region in c-fos first intron that contains a putative TATA box, and functional TRE and CRE sites. This fragment drives reporter gene activation in fibroblasts, which is enhanced by increasing intracellular calcium and cAMP and by cotransfection of CREB or c-Fos/c-Jun expression vectors. We produced transgenic mice expressing a lacZ reporter controlled by the intronic promoter. Lac Z expression of this promoter is restricted to the developing central nervous system (CNS) and the mesenchyme of developing mammary buds in embryos 12.5 days post-conception, and to brain tissue in adults. RT-QPCR analysis of tissue mRNA, including the anlage of the mammary gland and the CNS, confirms the existence of a novel, nested mRNA initiated in the first intron. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results provide evidence for a novel, developmentally regulated promoter in the first intron of the c-fos gene.

Use of DNA combing for studying DNA replication in vivo in yeast and mammalian cells.

Plasticity is an inherent feature of chromosomal DNA replication in eukaryotes. Potential origins of DNA replication are made in excess, but are used (fired) in a partly stochastic, partly programmed manner throughout the S phase of the cell cycle. Since most origins have a firing efficiency below 50%, population-based analysis methods yield a cumulative picture of origin activity (obtained by accretion) that does not accurately describe how chromosomes are replicated in single cells. DNA combing is a method that allows the alignment on silanized glass coverslips, at high density and with uniform stretching, of single DNA molecules in the Mb range. If this DNA is isolated from cells that have been labelled with halogenated nucleotides (BrdU, CldU, IdU), it is possible to determine the density and position of replication origins as well as the rate and symmetry of fork progression, quantitatively and on single DNA molecules. This chapter will successively describe (a) the preparation ofsilanized coverslips, (b) the incorporation of halogenated nucleotides in newly synthesized DNA in yeast and mammalian cell lines, (c) the preparation and combing of genomic DNA, and finally (d) the acquisition and analysis of single-molecule images to extract salient features of replication dynamics.

Subcellular imaging of dynamic protein interactions by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer.

Despite the fact that numerous studies suggest the existence of receptor multiprotein complexes, visualization and monitoring of the dynamics of such protein assemblies remain a challenge. In this study, we established appropriate conditions to consider spatiotemporally resolved images of such protein assemblies using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) in mammalian living cells. Using covalently linked Renilla luciferase and yellow fluorescent proteins, we depicted the time course of dynamic changes in the interaction between the V2-vasopressin receptor and beta-arrestin induced by a receptor agonist. The protein-protein interactions were resolved at the level of subcellular compartments (nucleus, plasma membrane, or endocytic vesicules) and in real time within tens-of-seconds to tens-of-minutes time frame. These studies provide a proof of principle as well as experimental parameters and controls required for high-resolution dynamic studies using BRET imaging in single cells.

A muscle-specific promoter directs Pitx3 gene expression in skeletal muscle cells.

The Pitx homeobox transcription factor genes have been implicated in different developmental processes, including determination of hind limb identity for Pitx1, left-right asymmetry for Pitx2, and eye development and survival of midbrain dopaminergic neurons for Pitx3. Pitx1 and Pitx2 have partly redundant activities in craniofacial development, including in pituitary organogenesis, as indicated by their names. These genes also exhibit redundant activities in the control of hind limb bud growth. Recent studies have shown expression of the three Pitx genes in muscle, with Pitx3 being the most widely expressed in all skeletal muscles. We now report the identification of a muscle-specific promoter within the Pitx3 gene that is situated between the first exon for eye and brain expression and exon 2 that contains the initiator ATG codon. Sequences proximal to this muscle-specific exon 1 are essential and sufficient to confer muscle-specific expression in transgenic mice, they are responsive to myogenic basic helix-loop-helix regulatory factors, and they recruit these factors in vivo. In agreement with exclusive use of the muscle-specific promoter in aphakia mice that are deleted of the brain promoter, the trimethyl-lysine 4 histone H3 promoter signature shifts to this promoter in embryonic day 13 ak limb bud muscle cells. Myogenic basic helix-loop-helix regulatory factor activation of Pitx3 transcription may be part of a positive feedback loop contributing to establishment of the myogenic program.

Sequential expression and redundancy of Pitx2 and Pitx3 genes during muscle development.

The myogenic program is controlled by different groups of transcription factors acting during muscle development, including bHLH muscle regulatory factors (MRFs), the paired factors Pax3 and Pax7 and the homeobox factors Six1 and Six4. This program is critically dependent on MRFs that target downstream muscle-specific genes. We now report the expression of Pitx2 and Pitx3 transcription factors throughout muscle development. Pitx2 is first expressed in muscle progenitor cells of the dermomyotome and myotome. The onset of myoblast differentiation is concomitant with expression of Pitx3; its expression is maintained in all skeletal muscles while Pitx2 expression decreases thereafter. We have generated Pitx3 mutant mice and this deficiency does not significantly perturb muscle development but it is completely compensated by the maintenance of Pitx2 expression in all skeletal muscles. These experiments suggest that Pitx genes are important for myogenesis and that Pitx2 and Pitx3 may have partly redundant roles.

The candidate tumor suppressor gene ZAC is involved in keratinocyte differentiation and its expression is lost in basal cell carcinomas.

ZAC is a zinc finger transcription factor that induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in various cell lines. The corresponding gene is maternally imprinted and localized on chromosome 6q24-q25, a region harboring an unidentified tumor suppressor gene for a variety of solid neoplasms. ZAC expression is lost or down-regulated in some breast, ovary, and pituitary tumors and in an in vitro model of ovary epithelial cell transformation. In the present study, we examined ZAC expression in normal skin and found a high expression level in basal keratinocytes and a lower, more heterogeneous, expression in the first suprabasal differentiating layers of epidermis. In vitro, ZAC was up-regulated following induction of keratinocyte differentiation. Conversely, ZAC expression triggered keratinocyte differentiation as indicated by induction of involucrin expression. Interestingly, we found a dramatic loss of ZAC expression in basal cell carcinoma, a neoplasm characterized by a relatively undifferentiated morphology. In contrast, ZAC expression was maintained in squamous cell carcinomas that retain the squamous differentiated phenotype. Altogether, these data suggest a role for ZAC at an early stage of keratinocyte differentiation and further support its role in carcinogenesis.