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Maintenance DNA methylation is essential for regulatory T cell development and stability of suppressive function
Kathryn A. Helmin, Luisa Morales-Nebreda, Manuel A. Torres Acosta, Kishore R. Anekalla, Shang-Yang Chen, Hiam Abdala-Valencia, Yuliya Politanska, Paul Cheresh, Mahzad Akbarpour, Elizabeth M. Steinert, Samuel E. Weinberg, Benjamin D. Singer
Kathryn A. Helmin, Luisa Morales-Nebreda, Manuel A. Torres Acosta, Kishore R. Anekalla, Shang-Yang Chen, Hiam Abdala-Valencia, Yuliya Politanska, Paul Cheresh, Mahzad Akbarpour, Elizabeth M. Steinert, Samuel E. Weinberg, Benjamin D. Singer
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Research Article Autoimmunity Immunology

Maintenance DNA methylation is essential for regulatory T cell development and stability of suppressive function

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Abstract

Tregs require Foxp3 expression and induction of a specific DNA hypomethylation signature during development, after which Tregs persist as a self-renewing population that regulates immune system activation. Whether maintenance DNA methylation is required for Treg lineage development and stability and how methylation patterns are maintained during lineage self-renewal remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the epigenetic regulator ubiquitin-like with plant homeodomain and RING finger domains 1 (Uhrf1) is essential for maintenance of methyl-DNA marks that stabilize Treg cellular identity by repressing effector T cell transcriptional programs. Constitutive and induced deficiency of Uhrf1 within Foxp3+ cells resulted in global yet nonuniform loss of DNA methylation, derepression of inflammatory transcriptional programs, destabilization of the Treg lineage, and spontaneous inflammation. These findings support a paradigm in which maintenance DNA methylation is required in distinct regions of the Treg genome for both lineage establishment and stability of identity and suppressive function.

Authors

Kathryn A. Helmin, Luisa Morales-Nebreda, Manuel A. Torres Acosta, Kishore R. Anekalla, Shang-Yang Chen, Hiam Abdala-Valencia, Yuliya Politanska, Paul Cheresh, Mahzad Akbarpour, Elizabeth M. Steinert, Samuel E. Weinberg, Benjamin D. Singer

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Figure 3

Treg-specific Uhrf1 chimeric knockout mice reveal Treg-autonomous and inflammation-independent effects of Uhrf1 deficiency.

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Treg-specific Uhrf1 chimeric knockout mice reveal Treg-autonomous and in...
(A) Representative contour plots and quantification showing Foxp3-YFP+ cells as frequency of splenic CD3ε+CD4+ cells from 8-week-old female Uhrf1+/+ Foxp3YFP-Cre/YFP-Cre (control) and Uhrf1fl/flFoxp3+/YFP-Cre (chimeric) mice (schematic). (B) CD25 heatmap overlaid on populations shown in A; associated graph quantifies CD25+ cells as percentages of splenic CD3ε+CD4+ cells. (C) MA plot comparing gene expression of splenic CD3ε+CD4+CD25hiFoxp3-YFP+ cells from control mice (Uhrf1-sufficient cells) and Uhrf1 chimeric knockout mice (Uhrf1-deficient cells). (D) K-means clustering of differentially expressed genes scaled as Z score across rows. (E) Cumulative distribution function plot of 1.4 × 106 well-observed CpGs expressed as β scores, with 0 representing unmethylated and 1 representing fully methylated; a shift in the cumulative distribution function up and to the left represents relative hypomethylation. (F) CpG methylation at the loci of differentially expressed genes (defined as the gene body ± 2 kb). (G) CpG methylation at 1335 DMRs. (H) Average gene expression at 567 gene loci near DMRs. n = 5 (control) and 12 (chimera) for A and B and 4 mice per group for C–H. Summary plots show all data points with mean and SD; violin plots show median and quartiles. *q < 0.05; **q < 0.01; †P < 0.001; ‡q or P < 0.0001; NS, not significant by Mann-Whitney U test (A and B), a mixed-effects analysis with the 2-stage linear step-up procedure of Benjamini, Krieger, and Yekutieli with Q = 5% (F), or Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for cumulative distributions (G and H); exact or asymptotic P and q values are in Supplemental Data. The asymptotic P value resulting from a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for cumulative distributions is shown in E. See Supplemental Table 3 for fluorochrome abbreviations.

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ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

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