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The role of transcription factors PU.1 a GATA-1 during leukemia differentiation.
Burda, Pavel ; Stopka, Tomáš (advisor) ; Kořínek, Vladimír (referee) ; Machová Poláková, Kateřina (referee)
Hematopoiesis is coordinated by a complex regulatory network of transcription factors among them PU.1 (Spi1, Sfpi1) and GATA-1 represent key molecules. GATA-1 and PU.1 bind each other on DNA to block each others transcriptional programs to prevent development of undesired lineage during hematopoietic commitment. Murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells, transformed erythroid precursors that are blocked from completing the late stages of erythroid differentiation, co-express GATA-1 and PU.1 and as my and others data document, are able to respond to molecular removal (down-regulation) of PU.1 or addition (up-regulation) of GATA-1 by inducing terminal erythroid differentiation. We provide novel evidence that downregulation of GATA-1 or upregulation of PU.1 induces incompletely differentiation into cell cycle arrested monocytic-like cells. Furthermore, PU.1- dependent transcriptome is negatively regulated by GATA-1 in MEL cells, including CCAAT/enhancer binding protein alpha (Cebpa) and Core-binding factor, beta subunit (Cbfb) that encode additional key hematopoietic transcription factors. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and reporter assays identified PU.1 motif sequences near Cebpa and Cbfb that are co-occupied by PU.1 and GATA-1 in the leukemic blasts. Furthermore, transcriptional regulation of these loci by...
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Actin and the ARP 2/3 complex in the nucleus
Němcová, Barbora ; Bellinvia, Erica (advisor) ; Hála, Michal (referee)
The eukaryotic actin cytoskeleton is required for numerous cellular processes, including cell shape, development and movement, gene expression and signal transduction, and response to biotic and abiotic stress. Actin constitutes a wide family of proteins that are major components of the cytoskeleton. Actin is one of the most abundant proteins in living organisms. Actin has essential functions both in the cytoplasm and in the nucleus, where it has been linked to key nuclear processes. Recent studies have shown that actin is actively transported from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, where it regulates transcriptional aktivity, regulates RNA polymerases, is involved in chromatin remodeling and repair damaged DNA. The presence of typical actin filaments in the nucleus has not been demonstrated directly.but nuclear actin occurs in many forms such as actin rods, short actin polymers, actin monomers, or actin complexes with profilin or cofilin. Most eukaryotic cells also contain at least eleven actin-related proteins (ARPs). Although many ARPs are cytoskeletal, recent biochemical and genetic work has demonstrated that some ARPs function largely or entirely in the nucleus. Nuclear ARPs are recognized as novel key regulators of genome function, and affect not only the remodeling of chromatin but also the...
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Role of sequence context in DNA methylation
Polák, Jan ; Fischer, Lukáš (advisor) ; Širl, Marek (referee)
Cytosine methylation of DNA is a pivotal epigenetic mark, which contributes to the regulation of the gene expresion, silencing of transposable elements, and co-defines chromatine state. There are three cytosine contexts: CG, CHG and CHH (where H stands for C, A, or T). Arabidopsis thaliana (and plants in general) has an arsenal of molecular mechanisms capable of cytosine methylation in all of its contexts. That said, there are two tasks at hand: maintaining of pre-existing methylation and if need be, creating new methylated spots. The actual process of maintaining of the methylation depends on the cytosine context. Methylation of symmetrical contexts of CG and CHG can utilize the information about the methylation pattern from the second DNA strand. The aymmetrical context of CHH, and also CHG need to look for this information elsewhere: in the methylation of the lysine 9 of H3 histone. This creates a self-reinforcing loop and a crosstalk between two epigenetic mechanisms. Maintaince of methylation of CHH is also navigated by small RNA complementary to the locus in question. This mechanism of enzyme navigating by RNA is also used in establishing a new methylated site for all of the contexts. CG methylation is most prevalent in both heterochromatine and euchromatine. It also has a special functions...
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Epigenetic Aspects of normal and malignant hematopoiesis: role of chromatin remodeling ISWIATPase.
Zikmund, Tomáš ; Stopka, Tomáš (advisor) ; Dráber, Peter (referee) ; Otáhal, Pavel (referee)
Chromatin remodeling protein Smarca5 participates on many cellular processes, which are important for tissue development and tumorigenesis. Among these processes utilizing ATPase activity of Smarca5 belong also transcription, replication and DNA repair. We hypothesized that Smarca5 represents essential molecule for chromatin modulation primarily at early developmental stages at the level of fast-dividing progenitors of many origins, in whose the ATPase is highly expressed. To such tissues may belong also hematopoiesis, in which the Smarca5 has highest expression. The subject of my doctoral thesis is therefore analysis of the effect Smarca5 depletion on proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic progenitors in vivo and a search for mechanisms behind the resulted developmental defects. We utilized conditionally knockout allele of Smarca5 in blood precursors to study in a mouse model how depletion of the ISWI ATPase causes accumulation of earliest progenitors inhibited from further maturation to erythroid and other myeloid lines. The proerythroblasts became dysplastic and the majority of basophilic erythroblasts ceased cycling around the G2/M stage. An expected mechanism for observed changes appeared the activation of stress pathway of protein p53 that is often associated with unrepaired DNA...
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Determinants of the splice site selection in protein-coding and long non-coding RNAs
Krchňáková, Zuzana ; Staněk, David (advisor) ; Svoboda, Petr (referee) ; Blažek, Dalibor (referee)
In my thesis, I focused on several underexplored areas of RNA splicing regulation. In the first part, I analyzed how chromatin and transcription regulatory elements change pre-mRNA splicing. In the second part, I studied why long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are spliced less efficiently than protein-coding mRNAs. Finally, I was testing the importance of intron for the activating function of lncRNAs. It has been shown that chromatin and promoter identity modulate alternative splicing decisions. Here, I tested whether local chromatin and distant genomic elements that influence transcription can also modulate splicing. Using the chromatin modifying enzymes directly targeted to FOSL1 gene by TALE technology, I showed that changes in histone H3K9 methylation affect constitutive splicing. Furthermore, I provide evidence that deletion of transcription enhancer located several kilobases upstream of an alternative exons changes splicing pattern of the alternative exon. Many nascent lncRNAs undergo the same maturation steps as pre-mRNAs of protein- coding genes (PCGs), but they are often poorly spliced. To identify the underlying mechanisms for this phenomenon, we searched for putative splicing inhibitory sequences. Genome-wide analysis of intergenic lncRNAs (lincRNAs) revealed that, in general, they do not...
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Molecular composition and ultrastructure of holokinetic chromosomes
Šejgunovová, Nikola ; Král, Jiří (advisor) ; Dalíková, Martina (referee)
Holokinetic chromosomes are a specific type of chromosomes which differentiate from standard (monocentric) chromosomes especially by a diffuse form of domain which binds microtubules (holocentromere). It is related to changes on an ultrastructural and molecular level. These changes are shown in modifications in mitotic and meiotic division and in evolution of karyotypes. Holokinetic chromosomes don't have a primary constriction with a localized centromere and therefore neither an inner centromere domain which would connect sister chromatids. Kinetochore structure of holokinetic chromosomes seems to be simpler than kinetochore structure of monocentric chromosomes. Kinetochore covers most of the surface of mitotic chromosomes. There have been described several variants of meiosis of holokinetic chromosomes which differentiate by position of kinetochore on chromosomes. On a molecular level holokinetic chromosomes differentiate from monocentric chromosomes by a distribution of proteins of a centromere-kinetochore complex, which cover most of the surfaces of mitotic and meiotic chromosomes. This applies, for example, to centromeric histone H3 (CENH3), whose amount and distribution changes during interphase and nuclear division, which is unique in comparison to monocentric chromosomes. The distribution...
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Production and analysis of cellular conditional inactivation models of the ISWI ATPase Smarca5
Tauchmanová, Petra ; Stopka, Tomáš (advisor) ; Burda, Pavel (referee)
The eukaryotic nuclear processes such as replication, DNA damage repair (DDR) and transcription are highly dependent on the regulation of chromatin structure. The dynamic changes in chromatin accessibility are controlled by a class of chromatin-remodeling factors which form multimeric complexes and use ATP as the source of their helicase activity. In this study we have established a mouse embryonic fibroblast in vitro model with conditional inactivation of chromatin remodeling ATPase Smarca5 and used this powerful tool to test the regulation of cell cycle, proliferation and DDR signaling in conditions with low Smarca5 activity. Our results show that decreased dosages lead to decreased proliferation apparent already within few days post induction of Smarca5 deletion that is accompanied with decrease of cells in S and M phases of cell cycle, increasing cell ploidy and accelerated cell senescence. Additionally, the Smarca5 depleted cells upregulated many protein markers associated with DNA damage and cellular stress. Our results thus indicate that Smarca5 has indispensable roles during cell proliferation including in the maintenance of genome integrity during S phase of cell cycle.
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Gene regulation in four dimensions
Vaňková Hausnerová, Viola ; Lanctôt, Christian (advisor) ; Převorovský, Martin (referee) ; Krásný, Libor (referee)
Transcription has turned out to be a discontinuous process when imaged at a single cell level. This observation is referred to as transcriptional bursting or pulsing and has been detected in a variety of organisms ranging from bacteria to mammalian cells. The dynamics of transcriptional pulsing are influenced by the properties intrinsic to the transcriptional process, as well as by upstream factors: chromatin environment, signalling molecules, cell cycle stage etc. In the first part of this thesis, we focused on the regulation of transcriptional pulsing in the nucleolus. Using imaging of living cells, we detected pulsatile transcription of a transgene with nucleolar localization whose expression was mediated by RNA polymerase II. In the second part of the thesis, we investigated the relationship between chromatin decondensation and transcriptional dynamics. We used hyperosmotic medium to induce global condensation of chromatin and revealed that upon chromatin decondensation, a transient spike in transcriptional intensity occurs in induvial living cells. Next, we analysed expression of TFRC and POLR2A genes in several cell cycle stages using single molecule RNA FISH. We detected increase in both frequency and size of transcriptional pulses during a limited time window which coincided with chromatin...
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Role of long non-coding RNAs in plants
Klodová, Božena ; Honys, David (advisor) ; Novotný, Marian (referee)
Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) represent a group of transcripts with length greater than 200 nucleotides having low coding potential. It is a group of regulatory ribonucleic acid (RNA) still not fully understood but with significant potential in many biological processes across different species. For animals, many important lncRNA regulators and their roles in a range of events including their involvement in carcinogenic diseases have been reported. However, particular mechanisms of functions are often yet to be discovered. Considering plants, economically important species such as rice, maize or soybean are of particular interest. There are still only several fully annotated transcripts. However, with the constant improvement of sequencing and bioinformatic methods, the importance of lncRNA (for example in pathogen resistance or plant reproduction) becomes clear. This bachelor thesis reviews up-to-date knowledge about lncRNAs and their roles in plants. It also describes the difficulties of lncRNA research and discusses their future potential.
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Association of chromatin modifications with transgenerational abiotic stress memory of plants
Vyskočilová, Barbara ; Holá, Dana (advisor) ; Fischer, Lukáš (referee)
Plants are constantly exposed to various stressors which usually leads to changes in the expression of many different genes. This can be controlled at multiple levels, including modifications of chromatin structure. Some of these modifications may persist even after the period when the plant is exposed to stress and could possibly act as a kind of "stress memory". This work deals with so-called meiotic/transgeneration "stress memory" of plants caused by abiotic stressors. Compilation of studies dealing with this topic showed that they are still rather rare and usually originated from only a few laboratories. The majority of these studies was aimed only at the examination of DNA methylation and their design was not always optimal. In my opinion, true proofs of transgeneration "stress memory" of plants still remain to be presented; further, more properly designed studies are necessary. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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