Skip to main content
  • Research Article
  • Published:

Tracking chromatin states using controlled DNase I treatment and real-time PCR

Abstract

A novel approach to DNase I-sensitivity analysis was applied to examining genes of the spermatogenic pathway, reflective of the substantial morphological and genomic changes that occur during this program of differentiation. A new real-time PCR-based strategy that considers the nuances of response to nuclease treatment was used to assess the nuclease susceptibility through differentiation. Data analysis was automated with the K-Lab PCR algorithm, facilitating the rapid analysis of multiple samples while eliminating the subjectivity usually associated with Ct analyses. The utility of this assay and analytical paradigm as applied to nuclease-sensitivity mapping is presented.

Abbreviations

Actb:

β-actin

BSA:

bovine serum albumin

Ct :

cycle crossover threshold

DNase I:

deoxyribonuclease I

EDTA:

ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid

Emax :

maximum efficiency of PCR reaction

FSB:

frozen storage buffer

Hbb:

β-globin

HEPES:

4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic

NP40:

Nonidet-P40

PBS:

phosphate buffered saline

PCR:

polymerase chain reaction

Prm:

protamine

Tnp2:

transition protein 2

RPMI-1640 Medium:

Liquid Media

Tn :

concentration of template at cycle n

References

  1. Weintraub, H. and Groudine, M. Chromosomal subunits in active genes have an altered conformation. Science 193 (1976) 848–856.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Kuo, M.T., Mandel, J.L. and Chambon, P. DNA methylation: correlation with DNase I sensitivity of chicken ovalbumin and conalbumin chromatin. Nucleic Acids Res. 7 (1979) 2105–2113.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Keene, M.A., Corces, V., Lowenhaupt, K. and Elgin, S.C. DNase I hypersensitive sites in Drosophila chromatin occur at the 5′ ends of regions of transcription. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 78 (1981) 143–146.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Wu, C. The 5′ ends of Drosophila heat shock genes in chromatin are hypersensitive to DNase I. Nature 286 (1980) 854–860.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Alevy, 7M.C., Tsai, M.J. and O’Malley, B.W. DNase I sensitive domain of the gene coding for the glycolytic enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. Biochemistry 23 (1984) 2309–2314.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Dorschner, M.O., Hawrylycz, M., Humbert, R., Wallace, J.C., Shafer, A., Kawamoto, J., Mack, J., Hall, R., Goldy, J., Sabo, P.J., Kohli, A., Li, Q., McArthur, M. and Stamatoyannopoulos, J.A. High-throughput localization of functional elements by quantitative chromatin profiling. Nat. Methods 1 (2004) 219–225.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Sabo, P.J., Humbert, R., Hawrylycz, M., Wallace, J.C., Dorschner, M.O., McArthur, M. and Stamatoyannopoulos, J.A. Genome-wide identification of DNaseI hypersensitive sites using active chromatin sequence libraries. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101 (2004) 4537–4542.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sabo, P.J., Kuehn, M.S., Thurman, R., Johnson, B.E., Johnson, E.M., Cao, H., Yu, M., Rosenzweig, E., Goldy, J., Haydock, A., Weaver, M., Shafer, A., Lee, K., Neri, F., Humbert, R., Singer, M.A., Richmond, T.A., Dorschner, M.O., McArthur, M., Hawrylycz, M., Green, R.D., Navas, P.A., Noble, W.S. and Stamatoyannopoulos, J.A. Genome-scale mapping of DNase I sensitivity in vivo using tiling DNA microarrays. Nat. Methods 3 (2006) 511–518.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Kramer, J.A. and Krawetz, S.A. Determining the potentiative state of a chromatin domain. Biotechniques 22 (1997) 879–882.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Bellve, A.R., Cavicchia, J.C., Millette, C.F., O’Brien, D.A., Bhatnagar, Y.M. and Dym, M. Spermatogenic cells of the prepuberal mouse. Isolation and morphological characterization. J. Cell Biol. 74 (1977) 68–85.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Bellve, A.R., Millette, C.F., Bhatnagar, Y.M. and O’Brien, D.A. Dissociation of the mouse testis and characterization of isolated spermatogenic cells. J. Histochem. Cytochem. 25 (1977) 480–494.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Wykes, S.M. and Krawetz, S.A. Separation of spermatogenic cells from adult transgenic mouse testes using unit-gravity sedimentation. Mol. Biotechnol. 25 (2003) 131–138.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Alsheimer, M. and Benavente, R. Change of karyoskeleton during mammalian spermatogenesis: expression pattern of nuclear lamin C2 and its regulation. Exp. Cell Res. 228 (1996) 181–188.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Alsheimer, M., Fecher, E. and Benavente, R. Nuclear envelope remodelling during rat spermiogenesis: distribution and expression pattern of LAP2/thymopoietins. J. Cell Sci. 111 ( Pt 15) (1998) 2227–2234.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Schutz, W., Alsheimer, M., Ollinger, R. and Benavente, R. Nuclear envelope remodeling during mouse spermiogenesis: postmeiotic expression and redistribution of germline lamin B3. Exp. Cell Res. 307 (2005) 285–291.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Goodrich, R.J., Ostermeier, G.C. and Krawetz, S.A. Multitasking with molecular dynamics Typhoon: quantifying nucleic acids and autoradiographs. Biotechnol. Lett. 25 (2003) 1061–1065.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Ostermeier, G.C., Liu, Z., Martins, R.P., Bharadwaj, R.R., Ellis, J., Draghici, S. and Krawetz, S.A. Nuclear matrix association of the human beta-globin locus utilizing a novel approach to quantitative real-time PCR. Nucleic Acids Res. 31 (2003) 3257–3266.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Kuwahara, M., Nagashima, J., Hasegawa, M., Tamura, T., Kitagata, R., Hanawa, K., Hososhima, S., Kasamatsu, T., Ozaki, H. and Sawai, H. Systematic characterization of 2′-deoxynucleoside-5′-triphosphate analogs as substrates for DNA polymerases by polymerase chain reaction and kinetic studies on enzymatic production of modified DNA. Nucleic Acids Res. 34 (2006) 5383–5394.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Kontanis, E.J. and Reed, F.A. Evaluation of real-time PCR amplification efficiencies to detect PCR inhibitors. J. Forensic. Sci. 51 (2006) 795–804.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Ramakers, C., Ruijter, J.M., Deprez, R.H. and Moorman, A.F. Assumption-free analysis of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) data. Neurosci. Lett. 339 (2003) 62–66.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Kramer, J.A., McCarrey, J.R., Djakiew, D. and Krawetz, S.A. Differentiation: the selective potentiation of chromatin domains. Development 125 (1998) 4749–4755.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Martins, R.P. and Krawetz, S.A. Decondensing the protamine domain for transcription. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104 (2007) 8340–8345.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen A. Krawetz.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Martins, R.P., Platts, A.E. & Krawetz, S.A. Tracking chromatin states using controlled DNase I treatment and real-time PCR. Cell Mol Biol Lett 12, 545–555 (2007). https://doi.org/10.2478/s11658-007-0024-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/s11658-007-0024-z

Key words