Genome duplication in Leishmania major relies on persistent subtelomeric DNA replication

Abstract

DNA replication is needed to duplicate a cell's genome in S-phase and segregate it during cell division. Previous work in Leishmania detected DNA replication initiation at just a single region in each chromosome, an organisation predicted to be insufficient for complete genome duplication within S-phase. Here, we show that acetylated histone H3 (AcH3), base J and a kinetochore factor colocalise in each chromosome at only a single locus, which corresponds with previously mapped DNA replication initiation regions and is demarcated by localised G/T skew and G4 patterns. In addition, we describe previously undetected subtelomeric DNA replication in G2/M and G1 phase-enriched cells. Finally, we show that subtelomeric DNA replication, unlike chromosome-internal DNA replication, is sensitive to hydroxyurea and dependent on 9-1-1 activity. These findings indicate that Leishmania's genome duplication programme employs subtelomeric DNA replication initiation, possibly extending beyond S-phase, to support predominantly chromosome-internal DNA replication initiation within S-phase.

Data availability

Sequences used in this study have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive. Data can be accessed using the accession number PRJEB35027.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Jeziel Dener Damasceno

    The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    jeziel.damasceno@glasgow.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2077-3214
  2. Catarina A Marques

    The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1324-5448
  3. Dario Beraldi

    The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Kathryn Crouch

    The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9310-4762
  5. Craig Lapsley

    The Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Ricardo Obonaga

    Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Luiz R O Tosi

    Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Richard McCulloch

    The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation,, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    Richard.McCulloch@glasgow.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5739-976X

Funding

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/N016165/1)

  • Luiz R O Tosi
  • Richard McCulloch

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/R017166/1)

  • Richard McCulloch

European Commission (RECREPEMLE)

  • Jeziel Dener Damasceno

Wellcome (104111)

  • Richard McCulloch

Medical Research Council (MR/S019472/1)

  • Jeziel Dener Damasceno
  • Richard McCulloch

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2020, Damasceno 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.

Metrics

  • 2,062
    views
  • 263
    downloads
  • 20
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Jeziel Dener Damasceno
  2. Catarina A Marques
  3. Dario Beraldi
  4. Kathryn Crouch
  5. Craig Lapsley
  6. Ricardo Obonaga
  7. Luiz R O Tosi
  8. Richard McCulloch
(2020)
Genome duplication in Leishmania major relies on persistent subtelomeric DNA replication
eLife 9:e58030.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58030

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58030

Further reading

    1. Genetics and Genomics
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Dániel Molnár, Éva Viola Surányi ... Judit Toth
    Research Article

    The sustained success of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a pathogen arises from its ability to persist within macrophages for extended periods and its limited responsiveness to antibiotics. Furthermore, the high incidence of resistance to the few available antituberculosis drugs is a significant concern, especially since the driving forces of the emergence of drug resistance are not clear. Drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis can emerge through de novo mutations, however, mycobacterial mutation rates are low. To unravel the effects of antibiotic pressure on genome stability, we determined the genetic variability, phenotypic tolerance, DNA repair system activation, and dNTP pool upon treatment with current antibiotics using Mycobacterium smegmatis. Whole-genome sequencing revealed no significant increase in mutation rates after prolonged exposure to first-line antibiotics. However, the phenotypic fluctuation assay indicated rapid adaptation to antibiotics mediated by non-genetic factors. The upregulation of DNA repair genes, measured using qPCR, suggests that genomic integrity may be maintained through the activation of specific DNA repair pathways. Our results, indicating that antibiotic exposure does not result in de novo adaptive mutagenesis under laboratory conditions, do not lend support to the model suggesting antibiotic resistance development through drug pressure-induced microevolution.

    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics
    Sanjarbek Hudaiberdiev, Ivan Ovcharenko
    Research Article

    Enhancers and promoters are classically considered to be bound by a small set of transcription factors (TFs) in a sequence-specific manner. This assumption has come under increasing skepticism as the datasets of ChIP-seq assays of TFs have expanded. In particular, high-occupancy target (HOT) loci attract hundreds of TFs with often no detectable correlation between ChIP-seq peaks and DNA-binding motif presence. Here, we used a set of 1003 TF ChIP-seq datasets (HepG2, K562, H1) to analyze the patterns of ChIP-seq peak co-occurrence in combination with functional genomics datasets. We identified 43,891 HOT loci forming at the promoter (53%) and enhancer (47%) regions. HOT promoters regulate housekeeping genes, whereas HOT enhancers are involved in tissue-specific process regulation. HOT loci form the foundation of human super-enhancers and evolve under strong negative selection, with some of these loci being located in ultraconserved regions. Sequence-based classification analysis of HOT loci suggested that their formation is driven by the sequence features, and the density of mapped ChIP-seq peaks across TF-bound loci correlates with sequence features and the expression level of flanking genes. Based on the affinities to bind to promoters and enhancers we detected five distinct clusters of TFs that form the core of the HOT loci. We report an abundance of HOT loci in the human genome and a commitment of 51% of all TF ChIP-seq binding events to HOT locus formation thus challenging the classical model of enhancer activity and propose a model of HOT locus formation based on the existence of large transcriptional condensates.