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Common variants in signaling transcription-factor-binding sites drive phenotypic variability in red blood cell traits

Nature Genetics volume 52, pages 1333–1345 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Genome-wide association studies identify genomic variants associated with human traits and diseases. Most trait-associated variants are located within cell-type-specific enhancers, but the molecular mechanisms governing phenotypic variation are less well understood. Here, we show that many enhancer variants associated with red blood cell (RBC) traits map to enhancers that are co-bound by lineage-specific master transcription factors (MTFs) and signaling transcription factors (STFs) responsive to extracellular signals. The majority of enhancer variants reside on STF and not MTF motifs, perturbing DNA binding by various STFs (BMP/TGF-β-directed SMADs or WNT-induced TCFs) and affecting target gene expression. Analyses of engineered human blood cells and expression quantitative trait loci verify that disrupted STF binding leads to altered gene expression. Our results propose that the majority of the RBC-trait-associated variants that reside on transcription-factor-binding sequences fall in STF target sequences, suggesting that the phenotypic variation of RBC traits could stem from altered responsiveness to extracellular stimuli.

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Fig. 1: BMP/SMAD1 signaling impacts human erythroid differentiation.
Fig. 2: Stage-specific MTFs are enriched in SMAD1 + GATA co-bound regions.
Fig. 3: SMAD1 + GATA co-bound enhancer regions form TSCs.
Fig. 4: STFs and MTFs at TSCs control gene expression.
Fig. 5: RBC-trait SNPs enriched within TSCs predominantly reside in STF motifs.
Fig. 6: PBM identifies RBC-trait-associated SNPs that perturb STF–DNA binding.
Fig. 7: STF SNPs perturb STF–DNA binding and abrogate signal responsiveness.

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Data availability

The massively parallel sequencing data associated with this manuscript have been uploaded to GEO under the accession numbers GSE74483 and GSE104574 and are currently open to the public. The web links for the publicly available databases used in this study are: UniPROBE, http://thebrain.bwh.harvard.edu/uniprobe/; CIS-BP, http://cisbp.ccbr.utoronto.ca/; FHS, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?study_id=phs000007.v30.p11; RegulomeDB, https://regulomedb.org/regulome-search/; HEMMER, http://hmmer.org/; EMBOSS Needle, https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/psa/emboss_needle/; dbSNP, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/?cmd=search. Links to all of the PBM datasets used are available in Supplementary Table 7. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The custom codes used in this study are available at https://bitbucket.org/abrahamb/workspace/projects/TSC. The code and data files for the PBM analyses are available at https://github.com/BulykLab/RBCSNPs_2020.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to S. Orkin, A. Wagers and C. Santoriello for the critical reading and editing of our manuscript. We thank the HHMI high-throughput sequencing facility at the Children’s Hospital Boston for generating the genome-wide raw sequencing data. We acknowledge V. G. Sankaran and S. Nandakumar for providing the luciferase plasmids containing non-coding alleles of the RBM38 gene and the enhancer mutant for the RBM38 gene in K562 cells. This work was supported by the following grants to L.I.Z.—R01 HL04880, P015PO1HL32262-32, 5P30 DK49216, 5R01 DK53298, 5U01 HL10001-05, R24 DK092760, 1R24OD017870-01. Additional support came from the funding by the Max Planck Society, The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung (Az 10.17.1.026MN), a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (631432 Bloody Signals), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG under Germany’s Excellence Strategy (CIBSS-EXC-2189-Project-ID-390939984) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Research Training Group 322977937/GRK2344 ‘MeInBio –BioInMe’ to E.T., the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Grillo-Marxuach Family Fellowship and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities to B.J.A. R.A.Y. is supported by NIH grants GM123511, CA213333 and CA155258. K.H.K. is supported by an A*STAR National Science Scholarship. M.L.B. is supported by the NIH grant R21 HG010200. S.K.G. is supported by R01HL139672, R01HL122684 and R01HL086694. D.E.B. was supported by the NHLBI (P01HL32262 and DP2HL137300). The FHS is funded by National Institutes of Health contract N01-HC-25195. The eQTL work for this investigation was funded by the Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (D. Levy, Principal Investigator). The analytical component of this project was funded by the Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institutes of Health; or the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Avik Choudhuri, Eirini Trompouki, Brian J. Abraham.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Avik Choudhuri, William Mallard, Audrey Sporrij, Karen Hoi, Victoria Chan, Sierra Tseng, John Rinn & Leonard I. Zon

  2. Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Avik Choudhuri, Eirini Trompouki, Sonja Boatman, Song Yang, Asher Lichtig, Michael Superdock, Teresa V. Bowman & Yi Zhou

  3. Department of Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Freiburg, Germany

    Eirini Trompouki & Barbara Hummel

  4. CIBSS Centre for Integrative Biological Signaling Studies, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Eirini Trompouki

  5. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Brian J. Abraham & Richard A. Young

  6. Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA

    Brian J. Abraham

  7. Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Leandro M. Colli, Paul S. Albert & Stephen J. Chanock

  8. Department of Medical Imaging, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

    Leandro M. Colli

  9. Division of Genetics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Kian Hong Kock, Seraj N. Grimes & Martha L. Bulyk

  10. Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Kian Hong Kock & Martha L. Bulyk

  11. The Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    William Mallard & Martha L. Bulyk

  12. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Min-Lee Yang & Santhi K. Ganesh

  13. Division of Hematology and Oncology, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Divya S. Vinjamur, Satish K. Nandakumar & Daniel E. Bauer

  14. Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Alireza Ghamari & Alan B. Cantor

  15. Summer Institute in Biomedical Informatics, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Seraj N. Grimes & Martha L. Bulyk

  16. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

    Teresa V. Bowman

  17. Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sendai, Japan

    Shinichiro Takahashi

  18. Hebrew Senior Life, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Roby Joehanes

  19. Framingham Heart Study, National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Roby Joehanes

  20. Department of Biochemistry, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    John Rinn

  21. Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Martha L. Bulyk

  22. Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Richard A. Young

  23. Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Leonard I. Zon

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Contributions

A.C. and E.T. designed and performed the experiments. B.J.A., L.M.C., K.H.K., W.M., S.Y., B.H., A.L., M.S. and S.N.G. performed bioinformatics and data analysis. T.V.B., A.S., D.S.V. and A.G. helped design strategies for key experiments, including CRISPR-mediated mutations. R.J. and M.-L.Y. carried out the FHS data analysis. K.H., V.C., S.B. and S. Tseng performed supervised experiments. S. Takahashi provided the PU.1-knockdown and PU.1-overexpressing K562 cell lines. S.K.N. provided the luciferase plasmids containing non-coding alleles of the RBM38 gene and the enhancer mutant for the RBM38 gene in K562 cells. Y.Z., A.B.C., S.K.G., J.R., D.E.B., P.S.A., S.J.C., M.L.B. and R.A.Y. provided insights on the analysis and interpretation of data. A.C., E.T., B.J.A., L.M.C., K.H.K., A.S. and L.I.Z. wrote and revised the manuscript. L.I.Z. supervised the study. All authors edited the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leonard I. Zon.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

L.I.Z. is a founder and stockholder of Fate Therapeutics, CAMP4 Therapeutics, Amagma Therapeutics, and Scholar Rock. He is a consultant for Celularity and Cellarity. R.A.Y. is a founder and shareholder of Syros Pharmaceuticals, Camp4 Therapeutics, Omega Therapeutics and Dewpoint Therapeutics. B.J.A. is a shareholder in Syros Pharmaceuticals. M.L.B. is a co-inventor on patents on PBM technology. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Peer review information Nature Genetics thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Human CD34+ cells commit to an erythroid fate around day 3 (D3) of differentiation.

a, Representative FACS plots for the erythroid markers CD71 and CD235a on CD34+ cells after induction of erythroid differentiation at hour 6 (H6), day 2 (D2), day 3 (D3), day 4 (D4), day 5 (D5) and day 7 (D7). b-c, Heatmaps depicting correlation of peaks from H3K27ac ChIP-seq or ATAC-seq obtained from distinct differentiation time-points. d-e, Gene tracks showing H3K27ac ChIP-seq signal (d) or ATAC-seq signal (e) at FLI1 and at the β-globin locus control region at different differentiation stages. D0 = progenitor CD34+ cells before induction of differentiation; H6 = 6 hours after differentiation; and D1 through D5 = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days after differentiation. f, Heatmap depicting correlation of gene expression profiles of all protein-coding RNAs from D0 through D8 of erythroid differentiation. D0 = progenitor CD34+ cells before induction of differentiation; H2 and H6 = 2 and 6 hours after differentiation; and D1 through D8 = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 days after differentiation. g, Signal heatmaps comparing ChIP-seq read densities of SMAD1, GATA2, and GATA1 at SMAD1 peaks identified at D0 (upper panel) and D5 (lower panel). Signal intensities centered around +/− 2.5 kb shown. h, Ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) for GATA2+SMAD1 bound genes at D0, H6, D3 and D4 and GATA1+SMAD1 bound genes at D3, D4, D5 identifying differentiation stage-specific biological properties.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Comparative TF motif enrichment and H3K27ac signal density analysis surrounding GATA+SMAD1 versus GATA-only regions.

Bar charts depicting the enrichment of transcription factor motif hits at regions co-bound by GATA+SMAD1 (left) versus by GATA only (right) at H6 (a) and D5 (b). Length of the bar indicates the fraction of peaks containing a given motif hit, and the number associated with the bar represents the corresponding -log10(p-value) obtained from the one-tailed hyper-geometric test to assess the significance of motif enrichment. For both (a) and (b), top and bottom of the ranked lists are shown. c, (left panel) Region heatmaps depicting signal of ChIP-seq reads for D0 SMAD1, GATA2 and H3K27ac at 33,470 GATA2 bound peaks at D0. Peaks are ranked by the SMAD1 intensity across the row. Each plot represents signal intensities around +/− 2 kb of the peak center. (right panel) Region heatmaps depicting signal of ChIP-seq reads for D5 SMAD1, GATA1 and H3K27ac at 10,855 GATA1 bound peaks at D5. Peaks are ranked by the SMAD1 intensity across the row. Each plot represents signal intensities around +/− 2 kb of the peak center.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 TSCs are a small subset of overall enhancers as defined by SMAD1 and GATA co-occupancy.

a, Venn diagram representing genomic regions co-occupied by different STFs - SMAD1, SMAD2 and TCF7L2 in progenitor CD34+ cells upon stimulation with BMP4, TGFβ and WNT signaling, respectively. The genomic regions bound by all three factors are 4549. The other numbers refer to the total number of peaks bound by each factor combination, as indicated. Regions are considered occupied if they pass a significant coverage cutoff. b, Table representing different strategies to define enhancers using H3K27ac ChIP-seq and/or ATAC-seq. The proportion of enhancers that can be classified as TSCs (GATA+SMAD1 co-bound) at progenitor (D0) or erythroid (D5) stages are as indicated.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Dissecting a TSC near the LHFPL2 gene by CRISPR-Cas9.

a, sgRNAs (shown in brown) targeting specific sequences near PU.1 (pink), GATA (red) and SMAD1 (green) motif-hits within the TSCs. b, Genomic sequences of the specific CRISPR-edited clones are compared against wild-type genomic sequence. Clones 14.13, 16.03 and 15.16 appear to target multiple motifs (that is PU.1 and partial GATA; partial PU.1 and partial GATA; SMAD1 and partial GATA). c, qPCR results depicting relative expression of LHFPL2 (black bar) and two other flanking genes (SCAMP1, grey bar and AP3B1, white bar) are shown in different CRISPR clones compared to the WT K562 cells, as indicated. Mean ± SEM shown. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). Two-sided student t-tests used.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Approach for interrogating enhancer-associated RBC-trait SNPs showing that SNPs targeting STF motif-hits are localized within TSCs.

a, Schematic diagram of the strategy used to identify SNPs that may alter activity of transcriptional enhancers during human erythroid differentiation. Human CD34+ cells from mobilized peripheral blood were differentiated towards erythrocytes. Genomic experiments were performed at D0, H6, D3, D4 and D5. 1270 lead RBC-trait SNPs and additional SNPs that are in linkage disequilibrium with lead SNPs, with LD score r2 ≥ 0.6 (total number of SNPs = 29,069), were first overlapped with genomic regions that are defined as non-exonic enhancer (represented as violet tracks) and open chromatin peaks (represented as grey tracks) in our study. SNPs that fall within such regions (indicated with red arrows) were used to carry out motif hit analysis, and were overlapped either with TSCs, or overall enhancers or GATA-only enhancers. b, Gene tracks showing RBC-trait SNPs that are located within stage-specific TSCs are shown. The binding of GATA2, GATA1, SMAD1, PU.1 and KLF1 and the peaks of H3K27ac and ATAC-seq are shown in progenitor and differentiated stages. Black lines indicate the positions of representative SNPs. The potential STF motifs that these SNPs could perturb (for example GLI, EGR) are as indicated. For each representative SNP that resides in a TSC, the other associated SNPs in significant LD that fall within H3K27ac/ATAC-positive enhancers are also indicated with grey dashed lines.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Analysis of PBM 8-mer data identifies several RBC trait-associated SNPs that perturb STF-DNA binding.

a, Schematic representation of the strategy to identify SNPs that alter STF binding utilizing protein binding microarrays. b, Bar charts for the GATA average PBM dataset for rs737092. The p-value (0.5469) is computed using two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test. c, Additional examples of SNPs showing perturbed TF binding of indicated STFs from PBM analysis (left) and corresponding distribution of expression values of the most significantly altered nearby gene in homozygous and heterozygous individuals obtained from FHS eQTL analysis (right). For PBM analysis, the P-values are computed using two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Individual genotypes and the cis-eQTL gene/exon obtained from the FHS dataset are as indicated. Two-sided test with linear model for EffectAlleleDosage used for eQTL analysis with P-values adjusted using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure. The lower and upper bounds of the box correspond to the 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively. The upper whisker extends from the upper bound of the box to the largest value no further than 1.5 * inter-quartile range (IQR) away (the IQR is defined as the distance between the 25th and 75th percentiles). The lower whisker extends from the lower bound of the box to the smallest value no further than 1.5 * IQR away.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 RBC-trait SNPs perturb STF-DNA binding.

a, TSC containing rs9467664 at SMAD motif near HIST1H4A. b, HIST1H4A expression during CD34+ differentiation. c, Western blot showing the expression of FLAG-SMAD1. TBP is loading control. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). d, Representative gel-shift assay with A or T allele of rs9467664. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). e, HIST1H4A eQTL analysis for rs9467664: boxplots represent median HIST1H4A64 expression as the thickest line, the first and third quartile as the box, and 1.5 times the interquartile range as whiskers. Two-sided test with linear model for EffectAlleleDosage used: effect estimate (β)=0.1562; T-statistics=31.0243, R2 = 0.15536; log10(P-value)=-193.41, log10(Benjamin–Hochberg’s FDR) = -190.1. f, Schematic representation of K562 clone with altered sequence around rs737092. g, Alteration of TF binding in K562 mutants from f. Mean ± SEM shown. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). Two-sided student t-tests used. h, Expression alteration of RBM38 in K562 mutants from f, under BMP and BIO treatment. Mean ± SEM shown. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). Two-sided student t-tests used. i, Luciferase assays for alternative alleles of rs737092. Boxplots represent median as the thickest line, the first and third quartile as the box, and 1.5 times the interquartile range as whiskers. Two-sided student t-tests used. j, Western blot comparing SMAD1 expression in control and shRNA treated CD34+ cells with indicated doses. TBP is loading control. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). k, RBM38 expression upon SMAD1 loss. Mean ± SEM shown. (n = 3; 3 biologically independent experiments). Two-sided student t-tests used.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 8 A model proposing how human genetic variation within TSCs induces RBC trait phenotypes.

A combination of STFs and MTFs drives optimal gene expression via the TSC. The normal signal-induced expression of a red blood cell gene is perturbed due to a SNP that either eliminates an existing STF binding event or creates a new STF binding site in a critical signaling center. This can lead to a lack of response to an episodic signaling event, initiated by an exogenous stressor, and eventually manifest as phenotypic variability.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–5 and Fig. 1

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Tables

Supplementary Tables 1–16

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source genomic regions and genes for GREAT analysis.

Source Data Fig. 5

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 6

Statistical source data for PBM analysis.

Source Data Fig. 7

Statistical source data for FHS analysis.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data for comparative motif analysis.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 6

Statistical source data for PBM analysis.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 7

Unprocessed western blots/gels.

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Choudhuri, A., Trompouki, E., Abraham, B.J. et al. Common variants in signaling transcription-factor-binding sites drive phenotypic variability in red blood cell traits. Nat Genet 52, 1333–1345 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-00738-2

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