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Rare epigenetic alterations are conserved across hematopoietic differentiation stages after mycobacterial infection
Brandon T. Tran, Pamela N. Luna, Ruoqiong Cao, Duy T. Le, Apoorva Thatavarty, Laure Maneix, Bailee N. Kain, Scott Koh, Andre Catic, Katherine Y. King
Brandon T. Tran, Pamela N. Luna, Ruoqiong Cao, Duy T. Le, Apoorva Thatavarty, Laure Maneix, Bailee N. Kain, Scott Koh, Andre Catic, Katherine Y. King
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Research Article Hematology Immunology

Rare epigenetic alterations are conserved across hematopoietic differentiation stages after mycobacterial infection

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Abstract

Infection leads to durable cell-autonomous changes in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), resulting in production of innate immune cells with heightened immunity. The mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, termed central trained immunity, remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that infection induces histone modifications leading to changes in chromatin accessibility that are conserved during differentiation from HSPCs to myeloid progenitors and monocytes. We conducted genome-wide surveillance of histone marks H3K27ac and H3K4me3 and chromatin accessibility in hematopoietic stem cells, multipotent progenitor 3, granulocyte-monocyte progenitors, and monocytes and macrophages of naive and Mycobacterium avium–infected mice. IFN signaling pathways and related transcription factor binding motifs including IRFs, NF-κB, and CEBP showed increased activating histone marks and chromatin accessibility across cell types. However, histone marks and increased chromatin accessibility were conserved at only a few loci, notably Irf1 and Gbp6. Knock out of IRF1 disrupted enhanced mitochondrial respiration and bacterial killing in human monocyte cell lines, while GBP6-KO monocyte cell lines showed dysregulated mitochondrial respiration. In summary, this study identifies IRF1 and GBP6 as 2 key loci at which infection-induced systemic inflammation leads to epigenetic changes that are conserved from HSPCs to downstream monocytes, providing a mechanistic avenue for central trained immunity.

Authors

Brandon T. Tran, Pamela N. Luna, Ruoqiong Cao, Duy T. Le, Apoorva Thatavarty, Laure Maneix, Bailee N. Kain, Scott Koh, Andre Catic, Katherine Y. King

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Figure 6

Histone modification H3K4me3 acquired in M. avium training do not persist in HSPCs that are transplanted and rested.

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Histone modification H3K4me3 acquired in M. avium training do not persis...
(A) Workflow of performing CUT&RUN on H3K4me3 in HSPCs and Mo/Macs that had been rested and transplanted into lethally irradiated recipients. In total, 200,000 CD45.2 M. avium–trained or untrained HSPCs (cKit+) were transplanted with 200,000 CD45.1 rescue marrow into lethally irradiated recipients. (B–D) Genomic tracks of Iigp1 (B), Gm4951 (C), and Gbp6 (D) in either untrained, rested or M. avium–trained, rested HSPCs, and Mo/Macs acquired from transplanted recipients. Data compiled from 2 independent experiments. MACS2 and Diffbind were utilized for analysis.

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