Consecutive low-frequency shifts in A/T content denote nucleosome positions across microeukaryotes

Summary: Nucleosomes are the basic repeating unit, each spanning ≈150bp, that structures DNA in the nucleus and their positions have major consequences on gene activity. Here, through analyzing DNA signatures across 1117 microeukaryote genomes, we discovered ≈150bp shifts in A/T content associated w...

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Main Authors: Stephen J. Mondo, Guifen He, Aditi Sharma, Doina Ciobanu, Robert Riley, William B. Andreopoulos, Anna Lipzen, Alan Kuo, Kurt LaButti, Jasmyn Pangilinan, Asaf Salamov, Hugh Salamon, Lili Shu, John Gladden, Jon Magnuson, M. Catherine Aime, Ronan O’Malley, Igor V. Grigoriev
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-05-01
Series:iScience
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225007333
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Summary:Summary: Nucleosomes are the basic repeating unit, each spanning ≈150bp, that structures DNA in the nucleus and their positions have major consequences on gene activity. Here, through analyzing DNA signatures across 1117 microeukaryote genomes, we discovered ≈150bp shifts in A/T content associated with nucleosome organization. Often consecutively arrayed across the genome, A/T peaks were enriched surrounding transcriptional start sites in specific clades. Most nucleosomes (both in vitro and in vivo) across eukaryotes aligned with A/T peaks, even in the presence of DNA modifications. Using artificial intelligence-based approaches, we describe DNA features associated with nucleosomes and construct a deep learning (DL) model for improved nucleosome occupancy prediction. Using this model, we found that ≈70% of “random” transfer DNA inserts from an in vivo fungal RB-TDNAseq library avoided DL predicted nucleosome-bound regions. This study reveals a eukaryote-wide strategy for generating cassettes of nucleosome-favorable DNAs that has a profound impact on nucleosome organization.
ISSN:2589-0042