A Roadmap for Human Liver Differentiation from Pluripotent Stem Cells.

How are closely related lineages, including liver, pancreas, and intestines, diversified from a common endodermal origin? Here, we apply principles learned from developmental biology to rapidly reconstitute liver progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Mapping the formation of multiple endodermal lineages revealed how alternate endodermal fates (e.g., pancreas and intestines) are restricted during liver commitment. Human liver fate was encoded by combinations of inductive and repressive extracellular signals at different doses. However, these signaling combinations were temporally re-interpreted: cellular competence to respond to retinoid, WNT, TGF-ß, and other signals sharply changed within 24 hr. Consequently, temporally dynamic manipulation of extracellular signals was imperative to suppress the production of unwanted cell fates across six consecutive developmental junctures. This efficiently generated 94.1% ± 7.35% TBX3+HNF4A+ human liver bud progenitors and 81.5% ± 3.2% FAH+ hepatocyte-like cells by days 6 and 18 of hPSC differentiation, respectively; the latter improved short-term survival in the Fah-/-Rag2-/-Il2rg-/- mouse model of liver failure.

Efficient endoderm induction from human pluripotent stem cells by logically directing signals controlling lineage bifurcations.

Human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) differentiation typically yields heterogeneous populations. Knowledge of signals controlling embryonic lineage bifurcations could efficiently yield desired cell types through exclusion of alternate fates. Therefore, we revisited signals driving induction and anterior-posterior patterning of definitive endoderm to generate a coherent roadmap for endoderm differentiation. With striking temporal dynamics, BMP and Wnt initially specified anterior primitive streak (progenitor to endoderm), yet, 24 hr later, suppressed endoderm and induced mesoderm. At lineage bifurcations, cross-repressive signals separated mutually exclusive fates; TGF-ß and BMP/MAPK respectively induced pancreas versus liver from endoderm by suppressing the alternate lineage. We systematically blockaded alternate fates throughout multiple consecutive bifurcations, thereby efficiently differentiating multiple hPSC lines exclusively into endoderm and its derivatives. Comprehensive transcriptional and chromatin mapping of highly pure endodermal populations revealed that endodermal enhancers existed in a surprising diversity of "pre-enhancer" states before activation, reflecting the establishment of a permissive chromatin landscape as a prelude to differentiation.

TherMos: Estimating protein-DNA binding energies from in vivo binding profiles.

Accurately characterizing transcription factor (TF)-DNA affinity is a central goal of regulatory genomics. Although thermodynamics provides the most natural language for describing the continuous range of TF-DNA affinity, traditional motif discovery algorithms focus instead on classification paradigms that aim to discriminate 'bound' and 'unbound' sequences. Moreover, these algorithms do not directly model the distribution of tags in ChIP-seq data. Here, we present a new algorithm named Thermodynamic Modeling of ChIP-seq (TherMos), which directly estimates a position-specific binding energy matrix (PSEM) from ChIP-seq/exo tag profiles. In cross-validation tests on seven genome-wide TF-DNA binding profiles, one of which we generated via ChIP-seq on a complex developing tissue, TherMos predicted quantitative TF-DNA binding with greater accuracy than five well-known algorithms. We experimentally validated TherMos binding energy models for Klf4 and Esrrb, using a novel protocol to measure PSEMs in vitro. Strikingly, our measurements revealed strong non-additivity at multiple positions within the two PSEMs. Among the algorithms tested, only TherMos was able to model the entire binding energy landscape of Klf4 and Esrrb. Our study reveals new insights into the energetics of TF-DNA binding in vivo and provides an accurate first-principles approach to binding energy inference from ChIP-seq and ChIP-exo data.

Co-motif discovery identifies an Esrrb-Sox2-DNA ternary complex as a mediator of transcriptional differences between mouse embryonic and epiblast stem cells.

Transcription factors (TF) often bind in heterodimeric complexes with each TF recognizing a specific neighboring cis element in the regulatory region of the genome. Comprehension of this DNA motif grammar is opaque, yet recent developments have allowed the interrogation of genome-wide TF binding sites. We reasoned that within this data novel motif grammars could be identified that controlled distinct biological programs. For this purpose, we developed a novel motif-discovery tool termed fexcom that systematically interrogates ChIP-seq data to discover spatially constrained TF-TF composite motifs occurring over short DNA distances. We applied this to the extensive ChIP-seq data available from mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). In addition to the well-known and most prevalent sox-oct motif, we also discovered a novel constrained spacer motif for Esrrb and Sox2 with a gap of between 2 and 8 bps that Essrb and Sox2 cobind in a selective fashion. Through the use of knockdown experiments, we argue that the Esrrb-Sox2 complex is an arbiter of gene expression differences between ESCs and epiblast stem cells (EpiSC). A number of genes downregulated upon dual Esrrb/Sox2 knockdown (e.g., Klf4, Klf5, Jam2, Pecam1) are similarly downregulated in the ESC to EpiSC transition and contain the esrrb-sox motif. The prototypical Esrrb-Sox2 target gene, containing an esrrb-sox element conserved throughout eutherian and metatherian mammals, is Nr0b1. Through positive regulation of this transcriptional repressor, we argue the Esrrb-Sox2 complex promotes the ESC state through inhibition of the EpiSC transcriptional program and the same trio may also function to maintain trophoblast stem cells.

A genome-wide screen for genetic variants that modify the recruitment of REST to its target genes.

Increasing numbers of human diseases are being linked to genetic variants, but our understanding of the mechanistic links leading from DNA sequence to disease phenotype is limited. The majority of disease-causing nucleotide variants fall within the non-protein-coding portion of the genome, making it likely that they act by altering gene regulatory sequences. We hypothesised that SNPs within the binding sites of the transcriptional repressor REST alter the degree of repression of target genes. Given that changes in the effective concentration of REST contribute to several pathologies-various cancers, Huntington's disease, cardiac hypertrophy, vascular smooth muscle proliferation-these SNPs should alter disease-susceptibility in carriers. We devised a strategy to identify SNPs that affect the recruitment of REST to target genes through the alteration of its DNA recognition element, the RE1. A multi-step screen combining genetic, genomic, and experimental filters yielded 56 polymorphic RE1 sequences with robust and statistically significant differences of affinity between alleles. These SNPs have a considerable effect on the the functional recruitment of REST to DNA in a range of in vitro, reporter gene, and in vivo analyses. Furthermore, we observe allele-specific biases in deeply sequenced chromatin immunoprecipitation data, consistent with predicted differenes in RE1 affinity. Amongst the targets of polymorphic RE1 elements are important disease genes including NPPA, PTPRT, and CDH4. Thus, considerable genetic variation exists in the DNA motifs that connect gene regulatory networks. Recently available ChIP-seq data allow the annotation of human genetic polymorphisms with regulatory information to generate prior hypotheses about their disease-causing mechanism.

Crystal optimization and preliminary diffraction data analysis of the SCAN domain of Zfp206.

Zfp206 (also named Zscan10) is a transcription factor that plays an important role in maintaining the pluripotent state of embryonic stem cells. Zfp206 is a member of the SCAN-domain family of C(2)H(2) zinc-finger transcription factors. The SCAN domain is a highly conserved motif of 84 residues which mediates the self-association of and heterodimerization between SCAN-domain family transcription factors. The SCAN domain may therefore be the key to the selective oligomerization of and may combinatorially enhance the regulatory versatility of C(2)H(2) zinc fingers. This paper describes crystallization attempts with the SCAN domain of Zfp206 (Zfp206SCAN) and optimization strategies to obtain diffraction-quality crystals. The best diffracting crystal was grown in a solution consisting of 0.3 M ammonium sulfate, 0.1 M Tris-HCl pH 8.6, 25% PEG 3350, 0.1 M ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt dehydrate (EDTA) using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion technique. Optimized crystals diffracted to 1.85 Å resolution and belonged to space group I422, with unit-cell parameters a = 67.57, c = 87.54 Å. A Matthews analysis indicated the presence of one Zfp206SCAN molecule per asymmetric unit.