Persistent epigenetic memory impedes rescue of the telomeric phenotype in human ICF iPSCs following DNMT3B correction
- Rambam Health Care Campus and Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel
- ABT CNR, Italy
Abstract
DNA methyltransferase 3B (DNMT3B) is the major DNMT that methylates mammalian genomes during early development. Mutations in human DNMT3B disrupt genome-wide DNA methylation patterns and result in ICF syndrome type 1 (ICF1). To study whether normal DNA methylation patterns may be restored in ICF1 cells, we corrected DNMT3B mutations in induced pluripotent stem cells from ICF1 patients. Focusing on repetitive regions, we show that in contrast to pericentromeric repeats, which reacquire normal methylation, the majority of subtelomeres acquire only partial DNA methylation and, accordingly, the ICF1 telomeric phenotype persists. Subtelomeres resistant to de novo methylation were characterized by abnormally high H3K4 trimethylation (H3K4me3), and short-term reduction of H3K4me3 by pharmacological intervention partially restored subtelomeric DNA methylation. These findings demonstrate that the abnormal epigenetic landscape established in ICF1 cells restricts the recruitment of DNMT3B, and suggest that rescue of epigenetic diseases with genome-wide disruptions will demand further manipulation beyond mutation correction.
Data availability
Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession codes GSE137183 and GSE138265
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Israel Science Foundation (1362/17)
- Sara Selig
Epigenomics Flagship Project , Italian Ministry University Research - CNR
- Maria R Matarazzo
Telethon (GGP15209)
- Maria R Matarazzo
PON/MISE (2014-2020 FESR F/050011/01-02/X32)
- Maria R Matarazzo
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Toubiana et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Persistent epigenetic memory impedes rescue of the telomeric phenotype in human ICF iPSCs following DNMT3B correction
eLife 8:e47859.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47859
