Delivery of chromosomes, the basic units of inheritance, to each daughter cell during cell division is mediated by the centromere. Unlike typical genes, in metazoans this central genetic element is not determined by DMA sequence. Rather, functional centromeres are determined epigenetically through stable acquisition of an unexplained, non-DNA """"""""mark"""""""". A prime candidate for a component of such an epigenetic mark is CENP-A, a histone H3 variant found exclusively at functional centromeres. We will determine how incorporation of CENP-A affects the underlying structure of the nuclesomes into which it assembles. This will be done using deuterium exchange mass spectrometry to identify the structural characteristics and conformational rigidity of nucleosomes assembled from 1) CENP-A, 2) histone H3 or 3) histone H3 carrying the centromere targeting domain of CENP-A. To identify how CENP-A may function in centromere assembly, components directly recruited by CENP-A, and potential cell cycle-dependent modifications of CENP-A, will be identified by mass spectrometry after purification of centromeric nucleosomes assembled in vivo with affinity tagged CENP-A. Similar affinity-tagged CENP-A nucleosomes assembled in vitro may also be used to purify components that selectively target to such nucleosomes. The timing and dynamics of centromere assembly before and after replication will be determined using fluorescently tagged CENP-A variants and photobleaching methods (FRAP and FLIP) or with tetra-cys CENP-A and fluorescent arsenic compounds (FLASH). Methods will be developed for rapidly following de novo centromere assembly in mammalian cells after introduction of large arrays of centromeric alphoid DNA carried on bacterial or yeast artificial chromosomes. These will be used to identify factors critical for formation of new centromeres. The medical implications of understanding how centromeres function and the genetic mechanisms that may generate failure of normal chromosome delivery are broad. Among these, errors of chromosome segregation lead to infertility. Moreover, many human tumors have highly abnormal numbers of chromosomes (that is, they are aneuploid), with initial chromosomal loss participating in the early steps of the transformation cascade in inherited cancers caused by heterozygous mutation in tumor suppressor genes and the more widespread aneuploidy characteristic of advance tumors thought to drive acquisition of malignant growth properties. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01GM074150-01A1
Application #
7036331
Study Section
Molecular Genetics B Study Section (MGB)
Program Officer
Deatherage, James F
Project Start
2006-02-01
Project End
2010-01-31
Budget Start
2006-02-01
Budget End
2007-01-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$316,037
Indirect Cost
Name
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Ltd
Department
Type
DUNS #
627922248
City
La Jolla
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
92093
McMahon, Moira A; Prakash, Thazha P; Cleveland, Don W et al. (2018) Chemically Modified Cpf1-CRISPR RNAs Mediate Efficient Genome Editing in Mammalian Cells. Mol Ther 26:1228-1240
Fachinetti, Daniele; Logsdon, Glennis A; Abdullah, Amira et al. (2017) CENP-A Modifications on Ser68 and Lys124 Are Dispensable for Establishment, Maintenance, and Long-Term Function of Human Centromeres. Dev Cell 40:104-113
Guo, Lucie Y; Allu, Praveen Kumar; Zandarashvili, Levani et al. (2017) Centromeres are maintained by fastening CENP-A to DNA and directing an arginine anchor-dependent nucleosome transition. Nat Commun 8:15775
Nechemia-Arbely, Yael; Fachinetti, Daniele; Miga, Karen H et al. (2017) Human centromeric CENP-A chromatin is a homotypic, octameric nucleosome at all cell cycle points. J Cell Biol 216:607-621
Ly, Peter; Teitz, Levi S; Kim, Dong H et al. (2017) Selective Y centromere inactivation triggers chromosome shattering in micronuclei and repair by non-homologous end joining. Nat Cell Biol 19:68-75
Hoffmann, Sebastian; Dumont, Marie; Barra, Viviana et al. (2016) CENP-A Is Dispensable for Mitotic Centromere Function after Initial Centromere/Kinetochore Assembly. Cell Rep 17:2394-2404
Bertuzzi, Stefano; Cleveland, Don W (2015) The curious incident of the translational dog that didn't bark. Trends Cell Biol 25:187-9
Rahdar, Meghdad; McMahon, Moira A; Prakash, Thazha P et al. (2015) Synthetic CRISPR RNA-Cas9-guided genome editing in human cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 112:E7110-7
Fachinetti, Daniele; Han, Joo Seok; McMahon, Moira A et al. (2015) DNA Sequence-Specific Binding of CENP-B Enhances the Fidelity of Human Centromere Function. Dev Cell 33:314-27
Bodor, Dani L; Mata, João F; Sergeev, Mikhail et al. (2014) The quantitative architecture of centromeric chromatin. Elife 3:e02137

Showing the most recent 10 out of 25 publications